Once More Unto the Breach
by Halcyon5
Summary: As the Covenant storm Reach, the battle-weary men of the 212th Infanty Regiment, 9th Army Expeditionary Unit, are called upon to make one final stand...  ON HOLD UNTIL "DO UNTO OTHERS" IS FINISHED
1. Chapter 1

Chapter I

Planet Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

Fort Harrison, Eposz

July 24th, 2552, UNSC military calendar

1320 hours

The briefing room was full. No, full was an understatement. It was _packed_, at least sixty men jammed into an amphitheater designed to hold no more than forty, which was one of the reasons for the incessant grumbling that permeated the air.

One of the other reasons was supplied to Captain Alan Locke, D Company, 4th Battalion, 212th Regiment, 9th Army Expeditionary Unit, as his stomach growled like a beast possessed, churning empty space as it loudly complained about the lack of sustenance it was enduring.

Whatever had happened to cause command to call all of the 212th's officer corps from lieutenant up had better be pretty damn important, Locke thought bitterly as he shifted to a more comfortable position against the duracrete wall. Lunch had just begun at Fort Harrison, the 212th's base of operations in the Eposz province of Reach when an emergency meeting of all officers had been called. Locke couldn't fathom what was going on; Reach, the crown jewel of the United Nations Space Command Defense Force, had never had a great deal of insurrectionist activity, and there hadn't been any news about a rebel cell being busted lately. Of course, Locke would much rather fight rebels than what the 212th had been facing for the previous twenty years.

The year was 2552, and humanity, united under the banner of the United Nations Space Command, was fighting a vicious battle against a religious hegemony of alien races known collectively as "The Covenant."

They were losing.

Badly.

Locke dipped his head in silent reverence for the countless souls that had been lost in the struggle for humanity's right to exist. Since first contact with the Covenant in 2525, the UNSC had been valiantly fighting to keep the aliens at bay. It was an admirable effort, but ultimately futile. The Covenant's religious leaders had issued an edict declaring the human race heretics, and that every last man, woman and child in the galaxy was to be wiped out.

Their genocidal campaign had thus far been devastatingly effective. Technologically superior, numerically greater, and religiously inspired, the Covenant had been slowly destroying humanity's fledgling interstellar empire one stronghold at a time. Locke had seen what the Covenant did to a world once all resistance had been annihilated; "Glassing", a form of orbital plasma bombardment, had turned the surfaces of countless paradise worlds into raging seas of apocalyptic flame.

It was a process Locke had seen far too many times for his liking. Locke's nostrils flared instinctively at the thought of what those alien bastards had done. Since the onset of the conflict, the 9th AEU, and, by extent, the 212th Regiment, had fought and slogged through dirt and mud, bled and died fighting against enemies who had never known defeat, only to be pulled off the planet right before the Covenant Navy showed up and flash-fried it. Thousands of young men and women fought and died, and for nothing. That process had been repeated over and over for years, an unwinnable war that humanity had no choice but to keep fighting. There was a reason that people like Locke who had been fighting for more than ten years and remained alive were considered lucky.

In 2552, the Outer Colonies were all but a memory, with the UNSC withdrawing and consolidating its forces in the strongholds of the Inner Colonies. But it was only so long before their locations-despite being religiously guarded by members of the Office of Naval Intelligence-were discovered by the Covenant, and the slaughter would begin all over again.

But for now, Locke thought, he could rest easy. This was Reach, military center of the UNSCDF and by all means impregnable to nearly any attack. Its defenses were second only to that of Earth. If any other place could truly have any degree of safety from the Covenant onslaught, it would be Reach.

The lights in the briefing room abruptly dimmed, and the conversation dropped off sharply from its former low buzz to near-complete silence, everyone impatient for an explanation as to why their lunch had been so rudely interrupted.

A single figure dressed in immaculate Army fatigues strode into the light on the stage of the briefing room; tall, with a distinctive buzzcut and an eagle on his cap and shoulders, Colonel Darius Winters, CO of the 212th, was somewhat of a legend among the men and women of the regiment, admired and well-liked for his quick decision-making abilities and propensity for not beating around the bush.

It was easy enough to see he was on edge. It manifested itself in the creased lines of his forehead and the sharp V of his bristly eyebrows, as well as the way his eyes flashed from side to side. Something big had gone down, and Locke began to get nervous.

"Gentleman," Winters said, his authoritative voice commanding the immediate attention of all who heard, "we have a situation. Last night, a communications relay station in Visegrad province dropped off the grid. No responses to hails were received."

That caused a buzz of conversation. Locke swallowed slightly; Visegrad was the neighboring province of Eposz, and the two areas were very closely connected. Any troubles in Visegrad could easily spill over into Eposz.

But troubles with what? Insurrectionists? There had been no indication throughout the previous months that the rebels were operating in any significant numbers in Visegrad.

Then again, relay outposts did not just go offline on their own. A few months earlier, Locke had heard something between deployments about rebels doing something like this on New Harmony, shutting down a communications relay and then stealing two freighters from dry dock. That had been a big shock; complex operations such as that weren't exactly the insurrectionists' MO. Blowing up governmental buildings? Sure. Taking classrooms hostage? Sure. But taking over an entire relay outpost on the second-most heavily fortified planet in the UNSC? That was something way above their usual level.

Locke felt a chill run down his spine despite the fact that it was easily over seventy degrees Fahrenheit in the room. The last thing the UNSC, and by extent, humanity as a whole, needed was for the insurrectionists to grow a pair and start causing trouble even as the UNSC-mankind's best and last hope for survival-was still desperately fighting to stave off an alien onslaught.

If there was any doubt left that something was amiss, Winters' next words eradicated that foolishly hopeful sentiment completely. "Subsequent disappearances of UNSC trooper squads sent to investigate prompted Command to deploy a Spartan team to bring the outpost back on-line and report their findings."

Locke blinked, and the swell of conversation increased even further. If Command thought that the deployment of a squad of the UNSC's premier, genetically-enhanced supersoldiers was necessary, something big must really have gone on.

Almost as if…

No, Locke thought to himself resolutely. It can't be. Not on here. Not on Reach. He shook his head violently, as if he could prevent it just by the force of his will alone.

Unfortunately, the force of his will appeared to be insufficient. "This is video footage of what they found," Winters said, stepping off to the side as the lights dimmed further and a holoscreen sprang to life, displaying the video feed from a Spartan's helmet. The HUD ID was blacked out, of course-ONI censors would have already gotten to this tape before it was shown and distributed, editing out anything they thought would jeopardize their operations.

The video began to play, showing a six-man squad of the supersoldiers working through the cramped hallways of the relay outpost. They came across the bodies of several workers lying in pools of coagulated blood, and then the video was fast-forwarded briefly, skipping over an exchange that took place between a blue-armored female Spartan with a robotic arm and the Spartan whose helmet video they were currently watching, as well as what appeared to be the largest of the supersoldiers helping a woman out of hiding.

When the video was kicked back into normal playthrough speed, everyone saw what they had been dreading.

A hulking, armored form dropped from the ceiling in front of the Spartans, igniting an energy sword and slashing at the first supersoldier, who dodged away. Locke's brain recognized it immediately: it was a saurian Elite, one of the most feared soldiers of the Covenant army, renowned for their size, strength, and intelligence, as well as the personal energy shielding systems built into their armor.

And in that single slash of the Elite's blade, all of the fears of everyone in the room were confirmed; humanity's final hope, her last bastion, had been found. And now, it was only a matter of time before it burned.

The holoscreen continued to play the video, and several more Elites appeared, disengaging active camouflage systems and drawing weapons. Locke examined their armor color and configuration, matching it to the pictures he had seen in intel briefings, as well as firsthand battlefield experience. These particular Elites appeared to be Zealots, normally known as battlefield commanders of Covenant forces, as well as notorious for their strength and skill in battle with the energy swords they seemed to prefer. The Spartans opened up on the Elites and vice versa, bullets sparkling off energy shields in a brilliant light display. These particular Elites appeared to be in a hurry to get somewhere, as they sprinted through the gauntlet of Spartans, heading around a corner.

The Spartan whose video feed they were watching opened up with his assault rifle, the orange muzzle flashes playing across the walls and creating a shifting half-light that, when combined with the blue glow of the Covenant energy weapons and shields, cast the Elites in an eerie light, highlighting their terrifying features.

One of those Elites bulled into the Spartan, knocking his assault rifle aside and slamming him to the ground. The Elite drew back his twin-pronged energy sword to impale the Spartan, but the human supersoldier was not going to go down. His armored fist launched out in a vicious right cross, catching the Elite across the side of the face and sending it reeling backwards. Before he could get back to his feet, however, the Elite recovered and slammed the Spartan back up against the wall, bringing its face right up to the Spartan's helmet and roaring its fury, its strange quadruple set of mandibles flying open to reveal a multitude of jagged teeth.

Before the combat could continue, however, the female Spartan appeared, knocking the Elite to the floor with a vicious kick and then drawing a magnum and pumping round after round into the alien. The Elite's shields flashed brighter each time as they repelled the slugs before finally failing. Before the Spartan could put a round through its skull, however, the Elite dove to the side and grabbed a wounded UNSC Army trooper from the ground, holding it up in front of him as a hostage and backing away while his shields recharged.

Winters paused the video right then, and the entire room was dead silent, enough to hear the proverbial pin drop. Taking a deep breath, he announced, "WINTER CONTINGENCY has been put into effect. The Covenant have found Reach."

If anyone after seeing the video had any vestiges of denial left, that statement from the commanding officer they knew and trusted so much stripped them of such thoughts.

Winters waited for a moment as the import of what he had just declared sunk in. WINTER CONTINGENCY-no relation to himself-was the order to be declared by anyone who found Covenant forces on a UNSC-controlled planet, and provided the orders for a worldwide military mobilization to wipe out the threat before it could fully develop. Already, plans were being laid for a thrust into Visegrad to eliminate any Covenant presence there and ensure the province remained in friendly hands before the full invasion begun. And according to those plans-at least, the ones Winters had been briefed on-the 212th was going to be the tip of the spear. Reach was the planet that the UNSC could not afford to lose, and it would be defended with all of humanity's might, however futile it may be.

This was the part of the briefing where he got to explain all that. Winters felt a slight sense of relief that the proclamation he had been dreading to make was over. Now it was time to show these brave men and women the plan of action.

The helmet-cam video abruptly vanished from the holoscreen, replaced by a satellite topographical map of Visegrad and the bordering provinces of Eposz and Összhang. Towns and villages were represented by small dots, and the areas of the province suspected to be under Covenant control were shaded in red.

It was a disturbingly large amount. At one point near the Babd Catha Ice Shelf on the northern ends of both Eposz and Visegrad, the Covenant's incursion had nearly reached the Eposz border. There was also an area deep inside Visegrad, which Locke remembered from his geography lessons was known as the Viery Territory, that was shaded in a darker red, with the words 'dark zone' printed across it.

Winters cleared his throat. "As you can see from this map, as soon as they were discovered, the Covenant appear to have come out of hiding in an attempt to take as much ground as possible to attain a secure position, possibly a beachhead for more invading forces. They slaughtered the local militias and have been mounting advances towards our defenses in the area." Blue arrows and lines appeared, surrounding the area in red, representing the UNSC forces that had moved in to stabilize the area. "The dark zone on this map represents where we believe the Covenant landing sight is, but we haven't been able to get positive sensor data on it for some time now."

Locke, still slightly in shock, couldn't believe it. The only way the Covenant could take over that much territory that quickly was if they had a small army hidden down there. How had the UNSC missed this? Locke knew from painful firsthand experience that the Covenant's ability to jam sensors was impressive, but how could they have squirreled away an entire legion from under the UNSC's literal nose? And not only that, but disguise the jamming by feeding the sensors a false image that everything was fine?

Well, the time for wondering and cursing the laziness of Command was over. Locke took deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, not to think about the bigger picture and focus only on this operation. He was a trooper; his job was not worry about the futility of the planet's defense, only to make sure his objective was accomplished.

"Operation: FIREWIND will be launched tomorrow morning at approximately 0400 hours," Winters was saying, continuing with the briefing. "Detachments of the 9th, 43rd, and 18th AEUs will be driving armored columns deep into enemy-held territory to reclaim strategic points of control in the province." As he spoke, more blue arrows appeared, driving from several points out of Eposz and Összhang and into Visegrad towards several larger towns and mountains. As the blue arrows advanced, the red began to disappear in front of them.

If only Covenant soldiers gave up as easily as the little red dots in intel briefings.

"Command is still unsure where the Covenant's landing zone is, or how many troops they have at their disposal," Winters said, "so until further reconnaissance teams can be deployed into the dark zone and a nerve center can be positively ID'd, UNSC forces will not move into the dark zone without direct orders from High Command."

That caused some consternation among those gathered. Locke frowned, trying to make sense of what he had just been told. There were Covenant troops on Reach, the capital of humanity's military, where the UNSC might just possibly have an advantage for nearly the first time in the war, and they were being told they couldn't annihilate the enemy in one fell swoop? That wasn't going to go over well with the troops.

To his credit, however, Winters ignored the murmurs of discontent and continued with his briefing, the holoscreen changing to demonstrate his words. "And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "is where you come in. The 212th will be driving into northern Visegrad, near the Babd Catha Ice Shelf, which, I'm sure you noticed, is quite contested. Command has determined there is a danger of Covenant troops spilling into Eposz, which we cannot allow to happen." The screen zoomed in and a bright green arrow appeared now, driving straight from Eposz into the northern regions of Visegrad, and terminating at a medium-sized town, Szófia, in a place labeled Nagylelküség Valley, wiping away the red sheen from the area.

Of course, the 212th was always given the job to liberate some place they couldn't even pronounce. Crazy Hungarians and their obsession with consonants…

"That town is being used as a staging point from which the Covenant are leapfrogging into Eposz; it is our objective to make sure that does not happen, and return the valley to UNSC hands. We will be airlifted to the border of Visegrad and move along the coastal highways until we reach the valley, eliminating any enemy forces we encounter along the way," Winters continued, and Locke noticed he strategically avoided mentioning the place by name, lest he butcher the pronunciation and draw laughs from any of the native Hungarians in the room. "Once there, elements of the 143rd Mechanized will provide support while we encircle the town and eliminate any hostile elements."

There was a flurry of action and blue arrows driving everywhere in the valley as the holoscreen depicted what Winters was telling them, and the town shifted from being highlighted in red to blue. "When the valley is in our hands, reinforcements will move in to stabilize the area." A blue shade began to expand from the valley, and then the animation stopped.

The lights slowly brightened again, leaving Winters facing a nearly silent officer corps. This was the Army, and now that they knew what was going on, they were awaiting orders.

Winters couldn't help but feel a small thrill of pride.

He cleared his throat. "Operation: FIREWIND begins at 0400 hours tomorrow morning. We are vacating Fort Harrison today, by 1800 hours. We will travel through the night to our departure point at the Eposz-Visegrad terminus of the Babd Catha highway. Understood?"

There was a chorus of 'yes, sirs,' as the officers dutifully repeated their line.

"Good," Winters said. "Any questions? Yes?" he said, pointing to a balding, heavyset lieutenant in the third row.

"Sir," the lieutenant asked, standing up. "How are we to be traveling?"

"We will be transported to the highway terminus by Condor," Winters replied quickly and succinctly. "Once there, we will proceed down the highway with help from the 143rd Mechanized."

There were several groans at that; no self-respecting infantryman liked to be indebted to tankers. Still, it was faster than walking.

"Anything else?" Winters pressed, and pointed to a female captain who had fought her way to the front of a crowd to be heard. "Yes?"

"Sir," she said, "is air support going to be available for this mission?"

Winters' face twisted violently for a moment at that, as if he was angry at something, but he quickly got it under control. "Air support is being delegated very conservatively," he said calmly, "as we are trying not to cause undo damage to UNSC infrastructure in the province, but I have been assured that it will be made available."

Everyone knew the reason for Winters' grimacing; it was always easier to simply flatten a Covenant encampment with high-payload thermobaric goodies from the sky than to spend lives and effort rooting them out on foot. Unfortunately, even this far into the war, there were still some candy-asses in Command that didn't realize that once the Covenant showed up, it was past time to stop worrying about damaging any "infrastructural assets" and just blow the hell out of them before they started dropping plasma on your head. It was just part of being a regular enlisted; the decisions of your superiors never made any sense, and you just had to roll with it and have faith they knew what they were doing. And after eight years fighting, Locke had very little faith left to give.

"Alright, then," Winters said, "this briefing is concluded."

There was a moment of silence, and then conversation hesitantly began again as the officers made their way out of the cramped briefing room. Locke got shafted near the back and was forced to wait as the tide of humanity trickled out the extremely inadequate set of double doors.

"Hard to believe, isn't it?" said a voice at his arm, and Locke turned to see that Captain Aaron Totelar of B Company had come up alongside him.

Locke blew out a breath. "You can say that again. Covenant on Reach…" he shook his head. "I knew it would happen eventually, but I always thought it would be later, not now."

"So did we all," Totelar observed quietly, "so did we all."

There was a pause in their conversation as they funneled through the doors to the briefing room and out into the halls of the command center of Fort Harrison. Conversation began to blossom now between the officers leaving the briefing and personnel in the hallways, and it wouldn't be long before the entire base knew what had happened.

Finally, hesitantly, Totelar spoke again as they rounded a corner in the hallway. "So," he said quietly, "do you think…"

Locke held up a hand, stopping what he knew Totelar was going to say. "No, I'm not going to think about it. Because if I do, I know what I'll conclude; the same thing I concluded on every other planet the Covenant came to. It's hopeless, it's futile, we all know this. Our job is simply to fight it out as long as we can and make those bastards pay for every inch of soil they take."

Totelar grunted. "Agreed," he said as the two men stepped out of the doors to the command center and out onto the rest of the base.

A UNSC military base is never a quiet place, and Fort Harrison was no exception. Vehicles motored about everywhere, ranging from M12 FAVs out on patrol to M808B Scorpion MBTs on their way to the mechanic and the private vehicles of base personnel. Even the sky was busy, with D77 TCI Pelican dropships landing and taking off at the airfield, ferrying things from one end of the base to the other.

And in just a few hours, all of this firepower, all of this strength, would be pitted against an alien foe who had never known defeat, who was now encroaching on their home soil with a religious fury that knew no bounds.

Locke smiled. And they will know death.

There are some people who insist that a Shaw-Fujikwa Slip-space drive, operating in peak condition at a speed of about four light-years per day, is the fastest man-made thing in the galaxy. Anyone who knows anything, however, will be quick to remind them that a rumor on a military base travels twice as fast.

And so it was that in the space of about six minutes since the officers' briefing concluded, nearly everyone in Fort Harrison knew what had happened.

And almost everyone had the exact same reaction.

"Well, shit," said Private Scott Anderson, expressing the exact emotions of everyone in the dormitory room of the barracks that housed 4th Squad, Bravo Platoon, D Company. The room was silent for a moment, the six men it held all staring blankly in shock at the man who had delivered them the news, squad leader Sergeant Jacob Mueller. Reach had represented everything for them; a last bastion, a fallback point, the one place the Covenant would never find.

Hope.

All of them in the room knew what happened now; it was like reading a book they already knew the ending to. The Covenant would come, they would burn and kill, and then they would destroy the planet when they were finished. Oh, sure, humanity would put up a valiant fight, and millions would die on both sides, but the Covenant would win. They always did. Ever since Harvest, humanity's fate had been one long foregone conclusion, but for some reason, they had kept fighting. Perhaps it was that fighting spirit, that essence inside them all that made them rise up and resist even in the face of unstoppable odds, that kept them going. But whatever it was, Scott glanced around the room and knew that the faces he knew so well-PFC Domingo Cortéz, Private Alex Kold, Corporal Riley Sanders, and Lance Corporal Jason Eisen-would fight with him.

And make no mistake, they would fight. They had no choice, and it was time to show the Covenant that humanity wasn't going to be a pushover.

"The Condors leave at 1800," Mueller said, standing up. "I suggest you all get ready." The AC-440 Condor was the prime mode of transport for moving large numbers of troops vast distances quickly; essentially a flying brick with wings, a Condor, while inelegant, could make good speed and carry up to an entire company of men inside its massive hold, which was about 125 meters long. They weren't exactly comfortable, but it was better than riding.

"I can't believe it," Private Kold whispered quietly to himself. Kold was a replacement for a former member of the squad who had eaten a plasma charge back on the Kyran Moons, and had been having some trouble acclimating to the military world after civilian life. "I can't believe it. We were supposed to be safe here."

Corporal Riley Sanders snorted in amusement, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "Obviously you haven't been in this unit long," he said. "No place is safe from the Covenant. Nowhere."

"Way to inspire confidence, sir," Dom said, only half-joking.

"I aim to please," Riley replied. "Now, suit up."

Scott stood up from where he sat on his bunk, his mind still in a daze as he walked trancelike towards the wall where his uniform hung. He ran his hands over the scuffed and battered material, the armor plates with plasma scoring in multiple locations and the nicks and dents that attested to many years spent in combat. That armor had saved his life more times than he could count over the years, and now he was being asked to put it on once again.

There was little conversation now as the squad suited up in their BDUs, their olive-drab fatigues covered by interlocking brown-gray armor plating, Scott slipped on the armored vest and snapped on the shoulder pauldrons that had regimental and battalion identification markings painted on them, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline he always did when kitting up. With slightly shaking hands, he slipped on his helmet, or "space pot", as many of the soldiers called them. Consisting of several different layers of polymers and plasma-resistant materials molded to the shape of each individual soldiers' head and covered with a metal skin, the helmets also sported the all-important Command Network Module uplink. The CNM allowed the soldiers to access real-time satellite data and orders from command, as well as providing visual aids in the identification of hostile forces and a targeting reticle that was linked to the soldier's HUD monocle, which scanned the information in real-time onto the soldier's retina using horizontal and vertical scrolling lasers that refreshed their data constantly.

The helmet settled into place smoothly, and Scott turned to see the rest of his squad retrieving their weapons from the lockers at the foots of their bunks. Eisen, as the squad's designated marksman, had recently received a brand-new M392 Designated Marksman Rifle to replace the battered M6J carbine he had been using, which was being phased out of service in favor of the M392 and its cousin, the BR55 in the Marine Corps. Dom also specialized as a grenadier, so in addition to the magnum, he carried an M90 Close Assault Weapons System 8-gauge shotgun and an M319 Individual Grenade Launcher with the name "Charlene" lovingly spray-painted on its side.

The rest of the squad kitted out with the standard loadout for a UNSC Army trooper, a no-frills package of weapons that allowed them to kill quickly and efficiently. Slowly, reverently, Scott reached down to retrieve his MA37 assault rifle. The standard-issue weapon for the UNSC army for the past fifteen or so years, it was a rugged bullpup design that was incredibly reliable and capable of delivering a prompt 900 rpm of 7.62mm FMJ ammunition. It also featured an integrated electronic display that had an electronic compass needle and displayed the ammunition left in the magazine.

This particular rifle had been Scott's for the length of his service in the Army, nearly ten years now, and had spelled the end of many enemies. It bore the nicks and scratches of many battles, but it had never failed him. Distributing his extra magazines across his tactical vest where they would be easily accessible, Scott powered up the magnetic weapons strip on his back and attached the rifle to it. After collecting a few M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades and attaching them to his vest, Scott retrieved his sidearm, a powerful 12.7mm M6G magnum, and strapped it to his leg. Finally, he slid his combat knife into its sheath on the inside of his arm.

"Let's move," Mueller said, shouldering his assault rifle and leading the way out of the room. Scott fell into place at the end of the column, taking one last look around the barracks as he departed, wondering if it would be the last time he ever saw it.

No. That type of thinking was destructive, a sure way to get oneself killed. The moment you accepted defeat, that was the moment you became combat ineffective. He would make it through this, Scott swore to himself. This time would be different. Reach would last, it would survive, and he would live to see the day the Covenant invasion was smashed.

The next few hours were a blur; the entire 212th Regiment was mobilizing, and so all of Fort Harrison was abuzz with activity. Soldiers marched in orderly blocks towards the airfield, where rows upon rows of Condors awaited with their ramps open to transport the men towards their goal, each bird labeled by the battalion and company they would be ferrying.

D Company, 4th Battalion's Condor was located at the end of the first row, with a garish paint job on the nose that depicted a wide-open maw filled with teeth chomping down on a Covenant Banshee with the colorful label "Bitch-eater" beneath it. Scott couldn't help but shake his head and smile at that; even though Condors were technically not combat birds, they did carry a set of .50 caliber anti-air turrets mounted on ball turrets above and below the fuselage to provide a limited defense. Apparently, this particular craft must have scored a few kills in the past to earn the right for such a decoration.

The clanging of boots on metal echoed loudly as dozens of soldiers marched up the ramp into the vast open hold of the condor. The inside of the massive transport was basically empty, with only racks to hold weapons and gear on either side, while the soldiers were expected to sit on the floor.

Of course. Comfort was the first thing to go out the window in the army, and there was no way the UNSC would be spending any money on comfortable seats that could be put into the SPARTAN programs and ship-building.

"Best get comfortable," Mueller advised as the squad picked out a spot on the edge of the hold, the voices of the soldiers inside echoing off the walls of the aircraft. "It's gonna be a long night."

**A/N: And so my first Halo fic begins. Anyways, I realize that the Condor is not a canon vehicle; however, I felt that the UNSC's fleet was strangely lacking in that it did not have a long-range, large-capacity troop transport that was strictly atmosphere-based. Thus, I introduced the Condor to compensate. I am also introducing a new vehicle, an M121 Badger APC, to compensate for the lack of a visible armored personnel carrier in the UNSC ground fleet. **

**I hope you'll forgive me. The Army isn't nearly as well fleshed out in canon, so I think I'll have some more room to mess around with their equipment in this fic. Anyways, reviews are appreciated! See'ya next time.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II

**Disclaimer: You know the drill. Bungie owns Halo, not me. If I did, there would be a squad-based Halo game coming out soon…**

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

Eposz-Visegrad highway terminus B-14

July 25th, 2552, UNSC military calendar

0540 hours

The sun rose over the planet Reach as it had throughout time immemorial, its inexorable ascent displaying no hint that there was anything wrong on the planet below. However, as the early morning rays illuminated the northern holds of the Eposz regions of the planet, that illusion was dispelled quickly and mercilessly.

Stretching off into the distance for miles, a massive convoy of armored vehicles down the

Interpro, or inter-province, highway. Nearly every type of ground vehicle serviced by the UNSC military was present as the massive 143rd Mechanized Battalion prepared to defend its home. A massive display of power and strength, the sight was visually stunning in both the amount of firepower and personnel present. With Warthog M12 Fast Attack Vehicles providing the vanguard of the convoy and M121 Badger Armored Personnel Carriers and M808B Scorpion Main Battle Tanks providing firepower and troop transport, the convoy was equipped with a massive capability of destruction.

_If only the Covenant were intimidated by shows of force, _Private Scott Anderson thought glumly as he rode in the back of the M121 Badger APC. The adrenaline he had felt after first hearing they were deploying had vanished, leaving him drained and tired. Try as he might, he couldn't help but feel that this entire operation was hopeless. Once the Covenant found a planet, its fate was sealed. All they were really doing was delaying the inevitable. Scott bit his lip, nearly drawing blood. This war had already taken so much from him. His parents were gone, their carbonized bones resting on the surface of the burned colony of Carpitua. His brother, a naval crewman, was reported MIA along with the rest of the crew of the Phoenix-class colony ship he had served on, the UNSC _Spirit of Fire, _which hadn't been heard from since the Second Battle of Harvest. Of his immediate family, only he and his sister, a GA-TL1 Longsword interceptor pilot with the 12th Fleet, were still living.

Reach had been the last bastion, Scott reflected bitterly as he stared out at the rising sun, so blissfully ignorant of the chaos that was being sown on the planet below. Sometimes, he wondered why he even bothered fighting.

The answer, of course, was obvious. Even with the omnipresent threat of death on the battlefield, there weren't really that many people that wanted to get out of the military. At least in the UNSC you could fight back before the aliens dumped plasma on top of your head; civilians simply got the latter part of that process when the Covenant came knocking on the door.

The driver of the Badger currently transporting the 4th and 5th squads of Bravo platoon, D Company, 4th Battalion, 212th Infantry Regiment rolled over a pothole in the highway. The abrupt change in direction jostled the men sitting in the back, causing the butt of Scott's MA37 assault rifle to jam uncomfortably against his chin. Annoyed, Scott readjusted the strap on the bullpup rifle, shifting the weapon to a more comfortable position.

The M121 was an old staple of the UNSC Army, a tried and true tracked APC that could transport two squads, or twelve soldiers, across any type of terrain from shifting desert stands to rocky mountainsides and keep them well-protected with twelve centimeters of titanium armor and a 20mm rapid-fire depleted uranium autocannon while it was at it. The Badger Scott was riding in was attached to the 143rd Mechanized Division, which was currently transporting the 212th to their objective, a town called Szófia that was being used as a staging point for Covenant forces in the Nagylelküség Valley.

_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil_, Scott thought, _for Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me._

That verse had always helped him throughout his life; an unchanging message from which he could always draw strength. While many people ridiculed him for his faith, made bitter by the fact that the Covenant were also religiously inspired, Scott had never wavered from his convictions. Swallowing, Scott slipped a hand underneath his armor and uniform to grasp the crucifix that dangled around his neck.

The ride down the highway was generally silent, mostly due to the fact that the cumulative roar of the convoy's engines made it hard to hear, and the fact that after the news that the Covenant had found Reach, no one really felt like talking. The few conversations that took place between the twelve men and women inside the APC were muted and quiet, with soft undertones that denoted despair. Scott busied himself by watching the large holoscreens mounted on the inside of the APC's troop hold that displayed video feeds from cameras around the vehicle and provided those inside with a 360-degree view of what was happening outside. Being able to know what was going on outside was always nice, as opposed to simply being locked in what felt like a moving iron coffin. Which was exactly what the Badger would become if some alien with a fuel-rod cannon decided to try his luck.

Scott was content, however, to just watch the screens. Occasionally aerial vehicles-Pelican and Falcon dropships, Hornet gunships, and F-115 Kestrel air superiority fighters alike would fly overhead, headed off to distant goals. A squadron of Kestrels flew CAP overhead, providing the convoy additional protection against any marauding Covenant Banshees.

And it was getting to the time where such threats were more than likely; as the convoy advanced farther down the highway into Visegrad, the sounds of a conflict in the distance began to grow louder. At this distance, they were limited to larger sounds; the dull blasts of UNSC artillery, along with the whines and crackling explosions of Covenant plasma. As they drew closer, however, the individual sounds of war became more distinct, the flashes of explosions visible on the mountainsides they were approaching.

Scott felt his heart begin to beat faster; they were rolling into a combat zone now. Things were about to get serious. He took a deep breath and checked to make sure his helmet was firmly sealed.

The convoy was rolling on their way to the valley when a dull roar began to drown out the other sounds of combat, audible even from inside the Badger's armored interior. Scott frowned, looking around to try and identify the source of the sound.

"What the-?" he began, but he was interrupted by a squadmate.

"Whoa, check it out guys," Kold yelled, pointing at one of the video screens. "Air support, comin' in at six o'clock low!"

The soldiers all twisted in their seats to see as the dull roar rapidly crescendoed into an eardrum-straining crash. Moving at speeds just under supersonic, a pair of C-822 Shortsword bombers screamed overheads towards Visegrad, flashing off into the distance.

"Ho-lee shee-it!" Kold called. "Did you guys see that? Did you guys freaking see that?"

"Yeah, we saw it," one of the soldiers in the other squad snapped impatiently. "And our eardrums are none the better for it. Sit your ass back down before you fall out."

Chastised and slightly crestfallen, Kold muttered something indecipherable to himself before obediently sitting down and glowering darkly. Scott frowned, hoping that the fight hadn't gone so far south already that the UNSC forces were requiring close-air support.

But, then again, if there was one thing humanity had learned in their decades-long war for survival, it was that there was no such thing as a dead-enough alien. The term "overkill" had been effectively removed from the UNSC's MOS.

The final leg of the ride seemed to take hours, as the combination of adrenaline and fear rushing through Scott's system guaranteed that he was as jittery as if he was entering his first firefight.

The entrance to Nagylelküség Valley loomed ahead of them as they approached, and the sounds of battle were now frighteningly loud. Obviously there were still some straggling UNSC forces in the valley holding out, providing the 212th and 143rd even more inspiration to complete their objective.

Scott's CNM buzzed as Colonel Winters' voice broke across the network. "All units," he said, "we are approaching the objective. Prepare for deployment."

With those words, Scott felt as if his fate was being sealed. With shaking hands, he checked his MA37 assault rifle one last time before resting the rifle on his lap and taking several deep breaths. _Oh Lord, deliver me this day from the hands of my enemies…_

The interior of the APC fell silent except for metallic clicks as those inside locked and loaded their weapons and murmured prayers. Scott looked up to the viewscreen to see what was going on outside.

The convoy was driving towards the town, with the buildings of Szófia visible now. The Covenant defense was beginning to come alive, and all across the rooftops, plasma turrets began to spit blue bolts of death into the UNSC advance.

The UNSC vehicles retaliated, firing back with a massive wave of firepower. 90mm tungsten HE shells from the Scorpion tanks blasted gaping chunks out of buildings that housed gun emplacements while the M41 LAAG guns on the back of Warthogs opened up in a hail of lead on the alien troops spilling out of buildings, the massive 12.7mm rounds tearing them to pieces. A subtle tremolo ran through the frame of the Badger APC as its computer-controlled 20mm DU autocannon opened up, seeking out targets of opportunity and eliminating them with uncanny accuracy. On the viewscreen, Scott watched with satisfaction as the depleted uranium self-sharpening flechettes tore through the thin armor of a Covenant Ghost ground-attack vehicle. The hovercraft detonated in a blue fireball, igniting the methane tanks of several Grunts standing nearby.

The Covenant defenses began to score kills as well. A fuel-rod-toting Grunt destroyed a Warthog in a spectacular explosion, forcing others to swerve out of the way of the wreckage. A wing of Banshees swept down from the sky, the distinctive wail of their engines audible even from inside the APC. Plasma bolts from their cannons stitched lines of fire into the highway in front of the UNSC advance. Another Badger burst into flames as the superheated energy bolts melted through the armor like butter and flash-fried the soldiers inside, causing Scott to wince with shared pain and the hope that such a fate didn't befall them.

Salvation came in the form of the four F-115 Kestrel air-superiority fighters that had been tailing the convoy; they swept in from behind, autocannons blazing and missiles etching smoke trails across the sky. Two Banshees went down; one detonating in a spectacular airburst as an AIM-12 "Boomerang" missile sought it out, the other's wing ripped off by an accurate burst of 35mm cannon-fire from one of the Kestrel pilots. That Banshee dropped from the sky like a rock, hitting the earth at an angle and pinwheeling across the ground, disintegrating into a mess of debris and flame that forced several advancing Warthogs to swerve out of the way of the mass of charred metal.

So focused had Scott been on the viewscreens, his only tie to the outside world, that he was taken by surprise when the line of Badger APCs rolled to a halt. They had reached the outskirts of town; now it was time for the infantry to go to work.

Scott swallowed as the sergeants inside began yelling, with the sound of Winters screaming "Deploy! Deploy!" over the CNM in the background. The back ramp of the Badger lowered, and Scott said one final prayer before they charged down the ramp and into hell.

As soon as they hit dirt, 5th squad's sergeant went down, blood and steam whistling from the neat hole in his head, courtesy of a Jackal sharpshooter and their uncannily accurate aim with the deadly Covenant particle-beam rifles.

"Shit!" Mueller yelled. "Get to cover!"

The remaining soldiers needed no extra encouragement. Scott's legs were already pumping like pistons, the force-amplifying circuits in his armor allowing him to move at the speeds of an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Plasma bolts impacted all around him as he ran, melting through concrete and boiling dirt into glass. His adrenaline spiking, he finally skidded to a stop at a low wall that surrounded the courtyard of what appeared to be a hotel.

More soldiers began appearing around him, dropping into position behind the wall. Scott recognized his fellow 4th squad members, as well as the surviving soldiers from 5th, as they hit the wall at varying speeds, panting like animals.

The wall was apparently thick-enough to protect against the plasma-fire coming from the Covenant troops inside the courtyard, so Scott thought they were relatively secure for a moment. Unfortunately, he thought wrong, as another beam-rifle shot drilled through the duracrete wall with a surgeon's precision, poking through just to the left of Scott's head.

Scott yelled and dropped to the ground just in time for another shot to shoot through the space he had just occupied, allowing a shaft of sunlight through the wall. The alien must have thermal goggles to be able to see their positions through the duracrete.

"That sniper's got us pinned down!" Mueller yelled. "Someone tag the bastard!"

"On it," Eisen replied in his cool, never-flinch sharpshooter voice. "Cover me."

When the rest of the soldiers behind the wall simply gawked at him, Mueller exploded again. "Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Give the man some defilade!"

The infuriated sergeant's tone provided the necessary inspiration to galvanize the soldiers into action, as Scott stripped the safety off his assault rifle and raised it over the wall, jamming down the trigger and struggling to control the recoil. The other soldiers did the same, spraying fire into the courtyard and the balconies of the hotel. As they were firing, Eisen poked his head over the top of the wall to ascertain the sniper's position. His CNM painted the silhouette of a Jackal sharpshooter on the third floor of the hotel in red, and he dropped back down just as a beam rifle shot sizzled through the air above his head.

"Gotcha now, sucker," the sharpshooter said before moving down the wall a few meters and popping up again, this time with his M392 Designated Marksman Rifle raised. He pulled the trigger twice, sending two 7.62mm rounds towards their target at supersonic velocities.

The first round was wide, hitting a balcony rail above and to the left of the avian alien with a distinctive _spang! _and a shower of sparks. The Jackal screeched in alarm, a screech which was abruptly cut off as the second round found its mark, penetrating the rough, mottled skin of the alien's neck and slicing through the carotid artery, or whatever the alien equivalent to it was. The alien stumbled forwards, tripping over the balcony and plummeting to the courtyard flagstones where it landed with a sickening crunch, blood pooling around it.

"Sniper eliminated, sir," Eisen reported.

Mueller let out a deep breath of relief, as did the soldiers behind the wall, all of whom lowered their weapons and reloaded.

Scott slid a fresh magazine into the housing in the MA37's butt, where it locked into place with a satisfying click. Seeing their position was-for the moment-relatively secure, Scott looked around, taking stock of the situation.

It was absolute madness. His CNM system was nearly overloaded, painting all friendly forces in green and all hostiles in red. The line of 212th soldiers was steadily advancing into the city, along with the vehicles of the 143rd. Covenant soldiers outlined in red swarmed everywhere; in the streets, on the rooftops, and behind deployable energy shields, trading fire with the humans as their own vehicles dueled with the UNSC armor. Banshees and Kestrels swooped and maneuvered in the skies above, sending debris raining down on the city from on high.

A buzz of static abruptly ran across Scott's HUD before a small box appeared in the corner of Colonel Winters, monitoring the battle's progress from a C709E Longsword electronic warfare bird circling high above. "Mueller!" he barked, surprising everyone in the squad.

"Sir?" Sergeant Mueller replied, sticking one finger in his ear to better hear the officer. "What's going o-?"

"Never mind that, soldier," Winters snapped. "We're in some deep shit here. The Covenant mined up the main road into town, and we don't have enough time to minesweep. The only other way to get our armor into the center of town is through an alternate route past the hotel you and 5th Squad are currently holding position at. Recon photos have shown that there is a sizeable presence of Covenant anti-armor on the roof that hotel. That roof will give us a clear view to call in artillery strikes all over town. If we're going to take Szófia, we need that roof in friendly hands."

If Mueller had any qualms about storming a massive building filled with an unknown number of Covenant forces with only two squads, one of which was already understrength, he didn't show it. "Affirmative, sir. We'll get it done."

"I'm sure," Winters said. "We have reinforcements on the way, but you'll have to spearhead the attack. Command out."

Winters vanished, and the sound of combat returned full-force. A blue diamond appeared on the roof of the hotel on their HUDs, denoting their current objective. Scott blinked, staring up at the hotel, which appeared to be at least ten stories high. They were supposed to storm _that _with only two squads?

"Come on, soldiers, move!" Mueller bellowed, directing the troopers to a gate in the wall that would lead into the courtyard of the hotel. Obediently, the remaining soldiers of 4th and 5th Squads formed up on either side of the gate, ready to storm into the courtyard.

"You," Mueller said, pointing to the fresh-faced corporal of 5th squad who was next in command after their sergeant's death. "What's your name?"

The corporal blinked, as if surprised at the question, and then shoved his helmet back a little. "Corporal Nathan Miles, sir," he said, his voice cracking slightly.

Mueller frowned, scrutinizing the kid closely. This kid was way too young to be leading a squad. Hell, he hadn't even started shaving yet.

Well, he would have to learn fast. "Your squad will take the right side of the courtyard as soon as we breach, and we'll clear the left. Understand?"

Miles swallowed and tightened his grip on his assault rifle, knuckles turning bleach white. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Alright," Mueller said. "Let's do this." He raised his boot to kick open the door. "In three, two-"

The sergeant never got to one. The door abruptly blew outwards, the back of it dripping molten metal. Mueller yelled and dove out of the way, back behind the cover of the wall as the door slammed onto the ground, plasma scoring visible on its back. As if to prove the point, a series of bright blue plasma bolts sizzled through the now-open gateway, boiling an electric blue so bright they dazzled Scott's vision momentarily.

"What the hell was that?" Mueller roared as he sunk into cover behind the wall.

Corporal Riley Sanders briefly glanced around the corner into the courtyard before ducking back and narrowly escaping a burst of plasma to the face. He blinked, clearing his eyes of the sunspot before answering. "They've got a turret set up in there," he said. "It's got complete enfilade on this doorway."

Mueller cursed, and Scott swallowed. The Covenant's portable plasma turrets, otherwise known as "Shades", were aptly named, since that was all that would be left of you after you got hit by one. Comprised of a rotating ball turret suspended above the base by an anti-gravity unit, they sported two barrels capable of firing bolts of plasma at incredibly high speeds, one hit of which was more than capable of vaporizing the entire torso of a human soldier, armor and all.

Nevertheless, every second they delayed in capturing the hotel was another second that the UNSC advance into Szófia was stalled. Mueller made a hand gesture at one of the soldiers in 5th squad, who obediently removed an M9-C flashbang grenade from his tactical vest and tossed it to the sergeant.

"Breaching in three…" Mueller yelled, and removed the pin of the grenade, tossing it into the courtyard. Immediately afterwards, he retrieved an M9-J smoke grenade from his own vest and tossed it afterwards.

A few seconds later, there was an earsplitting crack as the flashbang went off with the light of a miniature sun and a blast of sound roughly equivalent to the roar of half-a-dozen Hornet gunships all turning on their VTOL engines at once, blinding and disorienting any Covenant troops in the courtyard. In order to give the human soldiers even more cover, the smoke grenade triggered, putting up a line of black smoke to disguise their advance.

"Go! Go! Go!" Mueller yelled, leading the way as the two squads charged into the courtyard.

Scott felt breathless with adrenaline as he charged in after his sergeant, veering off to the left side of the courtyard. There was no enemy fire; the flashbang had apparently done its job in disorienting the Covenant forces long enough for the smoke to obscure the humans' positions.

Their loss. The eleven UNSC troopers charged out of the smokescreen towards the Covenant in the courtyard, weapons firing and screaming like demons.

Scott felt a fierce thrill come over him as he fired his MA37, stitching a line of 7.62mm rounds across the chests of a pair of Grunts, the vaguely simian aliens used by the Covenant as cannon fodder. The FMJ ammunition had no difficulty penetrating the weak armor of the miniature aliens, chewing their torsos to pieces in a cloud of blue alien blood. This was power. This was strength. He almost laughed, grinning like a madman as he brought the aliens' lives to very messy ends.

Then he ran out of ammo.

Scott cursed, going from conquering warrior to frantically-backpedalling terrified child in the space of about a second and a half as he struggled to reload. He tripped over a bench near a water fountain, falling behind it as he inserted a new magazine into his MA37.

And there was more bad news. The leader of the Covenant forces in the courtyard, a massive Elite wearing the blue armor that marked him as a Minor Domo-the ranking equivalent of a UNSC sergeant, Scott remembered from his lessons on Covenant culture-had apparently recovered from the effects of the flashbang faster than the other aliens in the vicinity. Roaring in anger, it sprinted over to the Shade turret, its personal shields lighting up as they deflected rounds from the UNSC rifles. He climbed onto the turret, grabbing the green-armored heavy Grunt that was currently manning it and rubbing at its eyes to clear them of the effects of the flashbang and bodily heaving it out of the turret before taking its place at the controls, swiveling the turret around to fire on the UNSC soldiers.

Scott's blood went cold. That Shade could wreck their advance in a manner of moments, turning their attack into mincemeat.

"Fire in the hole!" yelled a voice that Scott instantly recognized as Dom's. The 4th squad grenadier knelt and raised his M319 IGL, firing a single 40mm grenade at the Shade. The explosive detonated against the side of the Shade, knocking the ball turret off of the antigravity array and sending it rolling across the courtyard. The Elite inside roared in fury and, showing impressive strength, ripped apart the twisted metal to stand with its plasma rifle raised, bellowing a challenge to the UNSC soldiers.

Bad move. With its shields already weakened from the tremendous shrapnel and force they had absorbed from the explosion of the grenade, even a mighty Elite could not stand long against the combined firepower of eleven UNSC soldiers. The Army troopers opened up on the eight-and-a-half foot reptilian alien, and its energy shields sparkled with dazzling brilliance as they attempted to repel the massive amounts of firepower. Then, they were gone, vanishing with a pop as they overloaded. A soldier from 5th squad then raised an M90 CAWS and fired a single shell, the 8-gauge buckshot blowing open the alien's chest cavity.

With their commander dead, the remainder of the Covenant forces in the square, comprised of several Grunts and a pair of energy-shield-toting Jackals, were thrown into disarray and easily eliminated. Scott raised his MA37, centering the reticle on his HUD on the head of one of the fleeing Jackals and firing a short burst. The armor-piercing rounds split open the avian creature's head like an overripe watermelon, and it crumpled to the ground.

The soldiers looked around, visually verifying that there were no further Covenant forces in the courtyard. "Area secure, sir," Miles reported, a tad more cheerfully that the situation demanded.

"Lovely," Mueller replied with scathing sarcasm before tilting his head to examine the hotel. "Alright," he said, "let's get this done."

Scott frowned. That wasn't exactly the plan he had been expecting. He had served under Mueller long enough to know that the grizzled sergeant would have a detailed plan formulated for such an attack within a few seconds, even if the plan was "last one to the roof is a rotten egg."

Fortunately, Mueller didn't let them down. Utilizing his CNM, he quickly tapped into the local extranet services and downloaded the floor plan for the hotel, which he then sent as a data package to all the soldiers in the impromptu task force. "We've got to get this done quickly, so we won't have time to clear every floor. We'll have to pacify the lobby and then take the elevators up to the roof. The guys coming in behind us'll have to finish up the rest."

Scott nodded his agreement; he felt bad for the poor suckers that would have to go through and clean out the Covies room by room, but frankly, was glad that he wasn't doing it.

Of course, there was no guarantee he would survive the fight to the roof.

"Form up!" Mueller called, giving the troopers no more time to think about it. Scott swallowed and assumed the third breaching position on the left side of the door. In a breach, the assault specialists, generally equipped with shotguns, always entered first, and the remainder of the troopers with assault rifles or other specialized gear would follow, mopping up the rest of the resistance.

Mueller made the symbol for "grenade", pulling his hands apart and chopping one forward, and all the troopers complied, retrieving M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades from their tactical vests and holding them in ready hands. 5th Squad's assault specialist, a heavyset man who was identified as Pvt. Happen on Scott's CNM HUD, stepped up and sprayed a line of C7 foaming explosive all around the doors to the hotel lobby. He then inserted a one-time fuse and pulled out a remote detonator, stepping back into cover.

Mueller held up his hand, flashing five fingers, then four, then three, then two…and then one.

Happen stabbed the detonator and the foaming explosive ignited immediately, blowing the doors off their hinges and opening the way into the lobby. A volley of fragmentation grenades followed as the UNSC troopers tossed the deadly devices inside, hoping to capitalize on the shock of any aliens inside. The grenades went off in a series of concussive blasts, making Scott's ears ring even inside his helmet.

"Go!" Mueller shouted, egging the soldiers on. As the smoke inside was beginning to clear, the first soldiers rushed inside. The corpses of several Grunts lay strewn on the floor, victims of the fragmentation grenades, and a single blue-armored Elite stood in the doorway, his shields stripped from the explosion and a nasty-looking piece of shrapnel imbedded in his thigh. He roared in fury at the humans before him and attempted to raise his plasma rifle, but one of the soldiers from 5th Squad put a burst of 7.62mm rounds through the alien's skull, ending his life in a very messy fashion.

Despite the death of their leader, however, the alien defense now had time to crystallize, and blue and green plasma began to fly from the remaining Covenant forces in the room. The troopers dove for cover anywhere they could find it, taking shelter behind the large pillared columns that lined the side of the room.

Scott's CNM immediately painted the silhouettes of the aliens currently occupying the lobby; three Jackals had interlocked their shields in the middle of the room to form a sort of phalanx, while several Grunts scrambled around, firing at anything and everything that moved. Scott sighted on one of them, an orange-armored rookie, and fired a quick burst. The Grunt twisted violently as the bullets hit, spinning the small alien nearly all the way around before it dropped to the floor.

Dom popped out from behind cover, firing a grenade at the formation of Jackals. The 40mm grenade impacted on the lead alien's shield, blowing apart the formation and riddling them with shrapnel. The rest of the UNSC troopers quickly exploited the weakness; quick, concentrated bursts of MA37 fire disposed of the birdlike aliens within seconds.

After that, it was almost child's play to mop up the Grunts. Within a few seconds the last of the methane breathers was dead, and the two squads were standing in the middle of the lobby.

There was a brief pause as everyone looked around, checking themselves and others for injury. 5th squad's sharpshooter had taken a plasma bolt to the upper forearm, fusing his armor to the skin. A comrade was currently trying to assuage the pain with a field-aid pack. Several other troopers had suffered glancing hits that their armor had absorbed,

Corporal Sanders, as always, was the first up and ready to move. "Alright," he said, "looks like we're good." He gestured towards the elevator with the barrel of his assault rifle. "Let's move."

As soon as he finished the sentence, there was a sound from above like shattering glass, and a pink streak impacted in Sanders' side. The corporal's eyes went wide for a moment before he collapsed, falling against one of the columns for support, a foot-long explosive needle buried in his side.

**A/N: I introduced the Kestrel because the UNSC seemed to be lacking a consistent air-superiority fighter. Perhaps the Air Force has one, but that's not revealed in any halo canon. Anyways, the Hornet is classified as a gunship, which means it is intended for attacking ground targets and providing support for friendly ground troops. The Longsword is a high-altitude space-based interceptor, and dogfighting in atmosphere with that sort of "flying-wing" design would be extremely difficult. Thus, the Kestrel is introduced as the UNSC's counter to the Banshee, with its forward-swept wings and thrust vectors to allow it to keep pace with the Banshee's insane turning speed. **

**Also, I have no idea what the real designation for the Shortsword is. Halopedia doesn't say, so I just came up with C-882. **

**Reviews are always appreciated and may inspire me to update faster.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter III

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews. If schedule allows, will hopefully have next chappy out sometime this weekend. **

Zanzibar Hotel, Szófia, Visegrad Province

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

July 25th, 2552, UNSC military calendar

1322 hours

Scott immediately dove for cover, recognizing the projectile as one of the explosive needle-like devices employed by the Covenant. The UNSC troopers scattered, searching for the sniper.

"Target!" someone called out. "Balcony, five o'clock high!"

Scott turned his head, tracking the directions. Sure enough, his CNM highlighted the form of a Jackal sharpshooter hanging over a balcony two stories above the lobby, clutching one of those strange needle-rifles. It squawked in alarm as it saw it had been discovered, then turned and fled as the troopers opened up on the balcony.

"Cease fire, cease fire, damnit!" Mueller yelled, and Scott guiltily lowered his MA37, noting that the ammo counter now read 22 instead of 32. "He's gone, you idiots."

Scott shrugged. Firing had been instinctive, a response hard-wired into him by years of combat. See alien, raise gun, shoot. Dead alien equals live human. That was the simple grunt math that had kept him alive, and he was not about to deny its effectiveness.

Then he remembered Riley had been shot.

Spinning around, he saw that Riley was still slumped against the column, clinging to life, tugging futilely at the spike imbedded in his side.

"Medic!" someone called.

The war with the Covenant had, logically, impacted UNSC military protocol severely. Before the war, nearly every squad of Marines or Army troopers had a medic. However, with the queer nature of Covenant weapons, field medics actually became _less _necessary, in a very odd twist of fate. The nature of the distinctly plasma-based weaponry meant that it was very hit-or-miss. If a soldier was hit directly, there wasn't much to be done. Plasma burns were notoriously hard to treat in the field, and without gear available in an actual field hospital, serious hits were often fatal. However, in a strange corollary, if the hit was glancing or absorbed by the armor, the plasma left very little actual (all things considered) damage, and the most a medic needed to do was give the soldier some morphine, hand him his weapon back, and give him an encouraging slap on the back. That, combined with the time it took to train fully-qualified field medics versus the need to get new recruits out of boot camp as quickly as possible, led to the UNSC Army abandoning much of its "field medic" operation in favor of setting up more advanced, stationary field hospitals. The result was that now, there was often only one or two field medics per platoon, as opposed to four or five.

And while that stratagem had worked fine for plasma burns, the strange needle-like weapons the Covenant employed changed the game entirely. The pink shards of crystal were much more familiar to humans, almost directly analogous to their own firearms and bullets. Unfortunately, the shards of crystal also had a nasty little habit of exploding once they had imbedded themselves in a target.

The result was weapons that produced grievous, deep, bleeding wounds, as opposed to plasma burns, in which nearby blood was almost instantly cauterized. It was a double-edged sword; since human medical technology had for centuries been geared towards treating projectile wounds, the chances of surviving a hit from a needle as opposed to a plasma bolt were much higher, if the needle could be removed in time. However, the explosive and penetrating nature of the needles also meant that an soldier hit with one usually began to bleed out very quickly, requiring immediate medical attention.

Riley gasped, setting his assault rifle down on his lap and wrapping both hands around the shard. He attempted to pull it out, but only succeeded in opening up the wound even further. Blood that had been soaking the side of his fatigues now pooled on the ground in a scarlet fountain.

Scott immediately knew that even if they removed the needle before it exploded, Riley would bleed out within minutes at that rate. Everyone else had been paralyzed into inaction, but Scott had undergone basic medical training in boot, and knew that he could be able to save the corporal's life.

Scott ran over, throwing his rifle to a nearby trooper and kneeling by the wounded corporal. Riley immediately reached out, grasping Scott's arm with his own, his eyes wide with fear. His breathing was fast and shallow, a possible indication of a punctured lung. He tried to say something, but only ended coughing up blood all over Scott's fatigues.

Scott's medical training had not been extremely detailed, but it wasn't hard to figure out that someone coughing up blood wasn't a good sign. "It's alright," Scott said, hoping to instill some confidence in the wounded trooper. "You're gonna be all right." His hands traveled down Riley's side, to where the pink needle impaled the flesh. Riley gasped in pain as Scott's hands prodded around the site of the wound, feeling for any broken ribs that would get in the way or removing the needle. Feeling none, he wrapped his hands around the needle, wondering at the thing's glassy texture. It was colored an opaque pink, and as he watched, the inside began to pulse at regular intervals, gradually growing faster and faster.

Scott's eyes widened. He knew all too well what that meant.

"This is gonna hurt, alright?" he told Riley as he began to pull on the spike. Riley didn't respond, his eyes rolling back in his skull and his head flopping to the side. A thin trickle of blood ran down his chin. Scott swore; if the man's lungs had been punctured, he might not survive even if Scott successfully removed the needle. Scott wished they could get the man some morphine, but in his condition, any slowing of the heart could likely prove to be fatal. If he wanted to live, Riley would have to handle the pain.

Gritting his teeth, Scott wrapped his hands around the needle and began to ease it out slowly, working it back out through the layers of flesh and fat it had pierced. Riley whimpered with pain as more blood poured out, soaking Scott's gloves.

Scott cursed, seeing the flashing of the needle increasing. He didn't have time to ease the needle out before it exploded. This would have to be fast.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, before wiping his gloves on the ground so he could get a better grip on the needle. He wrapped both hands around its glassy surface, braced his foot against a wall, and yanked.

Riley's eyes snapped open as the massive pain tore through him, returning him to consciousness with brutal effectiveness. The man screamed like a little girl as blood gushed from the newly opened wound, forming a scarlet pool.

To Scott's surprise, however, the needle came out fairly easily, its glassy-smooth surface providing little resistance. Scott stumbled backwards, holding the half-foot long pulsing needle in his hand.

The pulsing was nearing its peak, a flash nearly every quarter-second. Scott's eyes widened in alarm, and he did the first instinctive thing; he chucked the needle as far away as he could.

The flashing projectile arced halfway across the room before it detonated in a fiery pink explosion, showering the standing soldiers with pink crystalline dust. Scott breathed a sigh of relief, but as Riley gasped again, he was reminded that the corporal was not out of the woods yet.

Dashing back to the man's side, he saw that, while Scott's pull had successfully removed the needle, it had also opened up the wound even more. A jagged flap of muscle hung over the gaping hole, blood pouring out like water from a tap.

Scott gaped for a moment, stunned by the sheer magnitude of the injury, before pulling out Riley's first aid kit with trembling fingers and retrieving a tourniquet cloth.

"Well, don't just stand there!" he heard Mueller bellow behind him. "Help the man!"

Relief swarmed through Scott as Mueller's roar jerked the other soldiers out of their reverie. Kold and another 5th squad soldier came rushing to his aid, helping him apply a rudimentary poultice and tourniquet. It was tricky, slippery work, and they went through several strips of cloth trying to bandage the wound. After what seemed like hours, however, they finally managed to control the bleeding and swathe up the wounded soldier's side in strips of bandage. When they had finished, they dragged the corporal to another wall column and propped him up against it. Riley's body flailed limply in response; the corporal had lapsed into unconsciousness again while they were bandaging the wound. His head flopped to the side, his skin unnaturally pale.

But he was alive. Just barely. The soldier's CNM informed them that he still had a pulse, and Scott confirmed it audibly. It was there; weak, but there.

It seemed like a month later when Scott finally stepped back from his comrade's body, his gloves and fatigues soaked in Riley's blood. It was a terrible feeling, to know that you were marked with the life essence of a comrade. In Scott's years of service, he had participated in many first-aid experiences, but those had been mainly with cauterized plasma burns.

Scott kneeled by Riley one last time. It looked so wrong, seeing the man lying here, pale and lifeless. Riley had always been the squad joker, the counterpart to Mueller's gruffness. It was a disturbing return to reality to seem him lying here, coughing up his lifeblood onto stained fatigues.

"You did well," Mueller said. "He should make it."

Scott didn't respond, knew the words were empty. Neither of them knew whether Riley would survive, but it was Mueller's duty as leader to inspire his men. And if that meant assuring them that Riley would live, than that was what Mueller would do.

Scott couldn't fault the squad leader for that, and saw no reason to. But for some reason, he suddenly felt an unexpected surge of hostility towards the man. It was unexplainable; he had always respected Mueller, both for his quick thinking and his ability in combat but for some reason, he gritted his teeth as he stared at Riley's body. Maybe it was just him needing release from the stress of holding a comrade's life in his hands, or maybe it was genuine anger at Mueller's decision to storm the lobby and not wait for reinforcements. But whatever it was, Scott felt the anger grow within him, white-hot and threatening to burst forth.

No. No, he thought. Not now. You can't afford a fight with Mueller as well. He did nothing wrong, was only following orders.

Only following orders. Scott wondered how many men had died throughout the years because of that phrase.

But, like all hot anger, this tantrum didn't last. Scott felt himself calming as he forced that anger into his emotional bottle. He'd deal with it after the battle, if they survived. Not now.

On an impulse, Scott reached for the crucifix around his neck. Riley was a religious man, he knew. Not overly so, more the quiet kind like Scott himself. Scott pressed the cross into Riley's palm and closed the man's fingers around it while uttering a prayer.

"Take it," he whispered. "You'll need it more than I will."

The brief moment of calm was interrupted, however, as Colonel Winters appeared on the squads' CNMs again. "Mueller!" he yelled, static interference audible in the background, "what the hell? Why haven't you cleared that roof yet? Our men are sitting ducks outside of town!"

"Sir, with all due respect," Mueller said, "we just had a man down and had to-"

"Damnit, soldier, I don't care!" Winters shouted. "We've GOT to get that roof in friendly hands ASAP! Understood?"

Mueller's face contorted as he struggled to control his anger, but he realized that the colonel was right. The mission always had to come first. "Roger, sir," he said bitterly. "We're oscar mike." Winters vanished into static, and the communications box disappeared.

"Alright," Mueller said, taking a look around and surveying their strength. It wasn't good. 5th Squad had been understrength since their deployment from the Badger, and was now two down, since their sharpshooter had been hit in the arm. With Riley down as well, that whittled the troopers' strength down to nine.

"5th Squad, stay here," Mueller said finally. "Secure the area and set up a perimeter while we secure the roof."

"Understood, sir," Miles replied, his voice quavering. Mueller shook his head; this had probably been the kid's first skirmish.

Mueller turned to his men. "Come on. Command's waiting." He tossed his assault rifle up to his shoulder and headed off towards the elevator. Eisen strolled up to Scott, holding Scott's dropped MA37. "Here," he said in that ever-calm voice of his, handing Scott the weapon. "Might need this."

"Thanks," Scott replied, taking the rifle in his bloodied hands, drawing comfort from its familiar weight.

There was no conversation as the remaining soldiers made their way to the elevator and punched in the key for the roof. Luckily, it was a large-enough elevator for the five fully-armored troopers to squeeze in with ample room.

Scott began to fidget, his foot tapping anxiously as his eyes were glued to the floor counter. There was no telling what they would face on the roof. The cheerful elevator music struck quite the counterpoint to the squad's collective emotions.

The counter ticked down from three, and finally hit one, the elevator timer ringing with ironic cheerfulness. The doors split open, revealing the roof of the hotel.

The roof was covered in gravel, crushing any hope the troopers may have had for a stealthy entrance. Ventilation ducts and sheds covered the area, providing ample cover for the Covenant force up top.

And there was a substantial Covenant force. As soon as the doors split open, dozens of alien heads snapped around to stare at the troopers, eyes glowing with hate. Near the edge of the roof, two fuel-rod turrets rotated slowly, pumping green radioactive rods at UNSC forces below.

"Get to cover!" Mueller yelled, and Scott agreed whole-heartedly, sprinting like a madman to the shelter of a nearby maintenance shed. The other soldiers spread themselves out across the rooftop, taking cover behind whatever they could. Green and blue plasma filled the air, pinning them down as the roars of angered Elites combined with the hisses and squawks of Jackals and the yelps of excited Grunts as the aliens sensed their prey. Scott stuck his MA37 around the corner and blind-fired the rest of his clip, and a startled yelp of pain told him he'd hit a Grunt. Smiling viciously, Scott ejected the empty magazine and, confident that he had somewhat suppressed the aliens in his immediate vicinity, slapped a new one in, leaning around the corner and centering his crosshairs on the first thing he saw, a massive red-armored Elite, its red armor matching the red outline his CNM painted it with. It was looking the other way, firing bursts from its plasma repeater at one of Scott's comrades. Scott lined up his crosshairs and stroked the trigger.

The first burst of five rounds hit the Elite in the side of the head. The alien's shields held, flashing brilliantly as they deflected the rounds, but the sheer impact force of the supersonic projectiles in rapid succession against its skull caused the alien to reel backwards, momentarily stunned.

Scott took full advantage of the Elite's shock, rapidly pressing down and releasing the trigger to send even more bursts of fire towards the reeling alien. The first and second bursts were likewise deflected, the Elite's shields sparkling, but they overloaded on the third, vanishing as if they had never been there.

Scott's next burst stitched a line of 7.62mm bullets up the alien's torso and through its thick neck. The FMJ ammunition punctured the alien's armor with ease, ripping through the flesh and sending gouts of violet blood into the air. The Elite's head actually came off of its trunk in a cloud of purple mist. The headless body crumpled, the veins in its neck still pumping lavender blood from the creature's twin hearts futilely up to a head that would never receive it, the blood instead collecting on the gravel in an ever-deepening pool.

There was a roar of rage, and Scott gulped as he saw another Elite, a blue-armored one, turning around and seeing the headless corpse of its brother. The new Elite focused its glare on Scott, and as he scrambled for a reload, the Elite pulled out and activated a plasma grenade and sidearmed it with vicious speed towards the human trooper.

Scott yelled in alarm and thrust out his rifle to block the device. The grenade hit the barrel of his rifle, the plasma membrane on its skin dissolving as it adhered to Scott's weapon. Scott's eyes went wide as the grenade brightened. In only a few seconds, it would explode, atomizing most of his body and throwing juicy little gibbets of whatever was left all over Szófia.

So he did the only thing he could. The thing that they had taught him never to do in boot camp.

He threw away his weapon.

The assault rifle spun end over end through the air, seemingly in slow motion. The rifle's butt smacked the startled Elite in the face and then clattered to the alien's feet. As the alien rubbed its head to clear its thoughts, it looked down to see the rifle/grenade at its foot. The Elite managed to give a startled "Wort!" of surprise before the grenade detonated in a flash of cleansing blue flame, leaving behind only a blackened crater in the roof and a few crisped body parts.

Scott had no time to celebrate the victory as his motion tracker alerted him to a group of Grunts attempting to sneak around the side of the shed. Lacking his primary motion, he withdrew his M6G magnum sidearm and racked back the slide, chambering the first of the magazine's eight 12.7mm semi-armor-piercing high-explosive rounds.

The high-pitched chitters and yaps of the Grunts were drawing louder, enough so that Scott could hear them over the yelling and shooting and explosions in the background. Retrieving one of his frag grenades, Scott pulled the pin and rolled the M9 around the corner.

Judging from the startled yells of the Grunts, Scott assumed he had thrown in well. There was a series of high-pitched shrieks that were abruptly drowned out by the grenade's detonation, and when he chanced a look around the corner, he saw the mutilated bodies of the simian aliens lying lifeless in pools of blue ichor.

Smiling wolfishly, Scott crept around the corner with his magnum raised. A single Grunt, sans one arm, was trying to pull itself away to safety. Scott put it down quickly, sending a single round through the back of its skull. Even as it slumped, lifeless, however, the shot drew the attention of a Jackal. The avian creature turned around, planting its linear shield to face him and raising one of those pistols that fired the exploding crystal spikes in rapid succession, and somehow homed in on their targets. Needlers, the troopers called them.

It was a Western-style quick-draw to see who won, and Scott was immediately grateful for all the time he had spent learning how to snap-shoot during training. He fired two shots from the M6G, one of which hit the alien solidly in the hand holding the shield. It howled in pain, dropping the shield as its shots went awry, the crystalline needles bouncing everywhere and shattering.

The second shot hit the alien's newly-exposed torso, the 12.7mm SAPHE round detonating inside the ribcage with considerably gory results, as if some giant creature had stuffed their hand inside the Jackal's chest and turned it inside out. Scott began to reload…

…and a clawed hand reached over his shoulder, slapping the pistol out of his grasp. Scott turned to identify his attacker but was immediately bowled over, catching only a brief vision of spiky fur, snapping teeth, and glowing eyes.

Scott was on his back in the gravel, the alien shrieking its victory cries as it rolled him over. Scott felt razor-sharp claws tear through his fatigues between armor plates, slicing through the skin.

Roaring in pain, Scott recalled his unarmed combat training in boot camp and immediately sought to regain his footing. He shoved up and away with all four limbs, one of his boots making contact with the creature's chest. He delivered a forceful kick that sent the creature stumbling back and allowed him time to regain his feet.

Barely. He had just steadied himself when the alien came at him again, shrieking its fury and snapping its jaws. This time, however, Scott recognized it as a skirmisher, one of the newer additions to the Covenant, first encountered in 2546. No one was really sure what they were, but the current thought among human biologists was that they were related to the Jackals, an offshoot of some sort. But whatever they were, they were vicious.

Covered from head to toe in silver fur and armor with a mane of feathers around their neck, Skirmishers were equipped with razor-sharp claws and fangs. They were used by the Covenant almost like attack dogs, used to sow fear among retreating human forces. While not as intelligent as their Jackal brethren, they still possessed a vicious, animalistic cunning, and never seemed to tire of ripping human flesh off of bone.

Shrieking like a banshee, the skirmisher closed in. Scott had barely enough time to get into a crouch and meet the creature's charge. Scott managed to stop the creature's charge this time, and the two wrestled at arms' length for a moment, struggling to get the upper hand.

It was tough. The skirmisher fought like a wild animal, and while Scott's own physical strength and the force-amplifying circuits in his armor allowed him to hold the creature at bay, he could feel his strength fast draining. The skirmisher screamed at him, opening its mouth to reveal a multitude of jagged teeth that Scott knew instinctively he did not want anywhere near his face, saliva dripping between its fangs as its noxious breath hit him in the face.

It smelled _terrible._ Scott recoiled instinctively, memories of rotten eggs and cigarette smoke forcing their way to the front of his mind.

The skirmisher leveraged that distraction to the utmost, leaning in to take a ragged bite out of Scott's left arm at the elbow joint between plates of armor. Scott roared in pain as the filthy teeth sank into his flesh. He retaliated, snapping out with a left cross that caught the skirmisher on the side of the mouth with a vicious crunching sound. The skirmisher reeled back, screeching in pain and spitting out bits of fatigues and broken teeth. When it had finished it whipped its head back up, staring at Scott with murder in its eyes.

Scott winced as he tried to move his lower left arm. The joint was beginning to stiffen up; he needed to finish this soon. As the creature made another charge, Scott drew his combat knife, his last remaining weapon, six inches of serrated carbon-fiber death fitting easily in the palm of his hand. And as the skirmisher closed, he stepped in to meet its charge.

That had clearly been the last thing the alien had expected, judging by its surprised expression. Scott struck accurately with the knife, managing to draw two shallow cuts along the side of the alien's jawline. The alien screeched in anger and stepped back before diving in again.

This time Scott was the one caught unprepared. The skirmisher grappled with him, catching by the shoulders and flinging him to the ground. He managed to maintain his grip on the knife and rolled to his feet, marking the alien across the side. It merely hissed and grabbed him again, this time slamming him against the side of the maintenance shed. Scott was grateful for his helmet as his head hit the metal with a resounding clang, and he shook his head to clear his vision.

When he snapped back into focus, he was rewarded with the sight of the skirmisher pinning him to the wall, jaws open wide as it attempted to catch his neck in its jaws.

Time seemed to slow as Scott made his bid to escape. As the creature brought in its head, its grip on Scott loosened. With a strength born of desperation and years of fighting, Scott brought his own head forward to meet the creature, his forehead colliding with the skirmisher's snout.

Pain blossomed in his forehead, but the skirmisher caught the worst of the exchange. Blood oozing from its snout, it staggered backwards, eyes glassy and disoriented. Seizing the chance, Scott shook his head and, his abused muscles screaming in protest, lunged for the skirmisher. He brought his elbow in a scything are, catching the creature on the cheekbone and sending it reeling back once again. Then he got down low as if playing a game of gravball and tackled the skirmisher, wrapping his hands around its waist and slamming it into the shed.

The skirmisher regained its wits just then, but by then it was too late. Their positions were reversed; this time it was Scott pinning the skirmisher to the shed. The skirmisher hissed violently and lashed out with a clawed hand, slicing three shallow cuts across Scott's cheek. Scott ignored the sting and punched the thing in the face, feeling bones shatter under the powerful blow.

The alien screamed in pain, and Scott sensed the end was nigh. He reversed his grip on the knife and drove it between the crack between the alien's neck and chest armor, feeling it pierce the skin and driving it deeper.

Contrary to what was seen in action vids, there was no such thing as a quick knife kill, unless you managed to sever the spine or hit the brain. However, it was one of the most excruciating ways to die possible, which the alien attested to, howling in agony as Scott mercilessly sawed through muscle and severed arteries. Purple-black blood began to gush out of the wound, coating his hand in yet another color, but he ignored it, focusing only on keeping the skirmisher pinned. The alien thrashed and fought, but Scott's grip was too strong, and gradually its attempts at escape grew weaker and weaker as its lifeblood poured into the gravel at their feet.

Finally, Scott decided he had waited long enough. He violently jerked the knife to the side so it was at an angle and then back out, ripping open a flap of muscle and opening the wound even larger. The amount of blood gushing out doubled, and the light in the skirmishers eyes faded as its body grew limp. Slowly, Scott let go and stepped back, allowing the dying alien to sink to the ground and giving it one last kick to the gums for good measure as he panted with exertion.

At that exact moment, a Grunt waddled around the corner, no doubt to investigate the sounds. It wore the burnished orange armor of a rookie, holding its plasma pistol tightly in shaking claws. As soon as it saw him, it froze, dropping the pistol and staring at him, dark eyes wide behind the methane mask.

Scott couldn't help but smile at the thought of the image he must present; standing above the mutilated corpse of a skirmisher, covered in purple blood, grinning maniacally with a blood-stained knife in hand.

"Boo," he said.

The Grunt immediately shrieked, throwing up its hands and running off wildly. Scott scooped up his magnum from where he lay and was about to fire when Winters' voice broke across the comms, audible over the sound of the still-raging firefight: "5th squad! Mueller? Mueller, do you read me?"

"Yeah, we read you," Mueller said, the whine of plasma and the crackle of assault rifles audible in the background.

"Good! You need to get to cover, now! Command just lifted the close-air support ban. We've got two incoming F-99s to blow the hell out of that roof."

"Say again?" Mueller croaked.

"I said we've got incoming close air support!" Winters repeated. "Find a place to hunker down and keep your heads under cover until the explosions stop."

"Uh, Roger that, sir," Mueller said. "You heard the man!" he bellowed. "Find a hole and stick your ass in it!"

Scott needed no further encouragement. Turning around, he joined the rest of his squad in sprinting for cover. "Hey," shouted Kold over the com. "Isn't this danger close?"

"Come on," Dom responded. "Since when has Winters ever given two shits about danger close?"

Scott couldn't help but break a smile at that, even as he sprinted wildly for cover, eventually sliding behind a large ventilation block.

The F-99 Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, colloquially known as the "Osprey" or "Wombat", was a drone strike fighter designed to provide close air support in areas too small or difficult for full-fledged aircraft. Able to carry nearly every type of missile manufactured by the UNSC, as well as an underslung 30mm cannon, it was more than capable of devastating any enemy position.

Two F-99s swooped into the contested airspace above Szófia, flying wingtip to wingtip with a precision that human pilots could not hope to match. Guided unerringly by their target coordinates and the dumb AIs that controlled the drones, they streaked towards the rooftop of the Zanzibar hotel, where their FLIR radar painted the enemy positions on the rooftop in red. The drones' "brains" automatically filtered through the various enemy forces to determine which posed the greatest threat to UNSC forces in the immediate vicinity. Logically, they settled on the twin fuel-rod cannons. Likewise, the drones inferred that the rotating-ball turrets were not worth the use of one of their AGM-25 Hellfire anti-armor missiles, and so they selected their underslung GAU/18-A 30mm rapid-fire cannons as they streaked in past the rooftop.

A quarter-second burst from each drone on each cannon was all it took. To the aliens and humans alike cowering on the rooftop, it must have seemed as if the heavens had suddenly split open and poured out their judgment on the two fuel-rod turrets. The weak Covenant armor was torn apart, gravel kicked up all around the turrets. The turrets' operators were juiced within instants, the turrets themselves detonating in flashes of purple flame.

Scott cheered, but the drones weren't done yet. Recognizing that there were still Covenant ground troops on the rooftop, they executed a turn so tight it would be impossible for any organic-controlled aircraft and arced around for another pass. This time, each F-99 locked in on the collective thermal signatures of the Covenant positions and deployed a single AGM/I-55 each.

The Air-to-Ground Missile/Infantry 55, was a weapon of absolute terror against soft, unarmored targets, and one of the few human non-nuclear weapons that had garnered enough of a reputation for Covenant soldiers to actually fear it. There were several stories of platoons of soldiers being saved by F-99s or other UNSC aircraft that were dry on missiles merely making overhead passes, with the Covenant withdrawing, fearing a hit by an AGM/I-55. While those withdrawals were usually brief, enough time for the Elite commanders to regain their zeal, they were often enough to extract squads from hot zones.

Mimicking the technology of the canister shells fired by tanks, the missile actually had a (comparatively) small warhead, comprising only a half-pound of explosives. The real damage would come from the hundreds of grape-sized iron and tungsten balls that were packed tightly around the explosive charge. When detonated, the balls acted like scattershot, ripping apart any soft target within their radius with brutal efficiency.

The UNSC Army ground troopers referred to it as, "God's Shotgun."

Any remaining Covenant forces on the rooftop never had time to ponder their imminent doom. The F-99s flashed overhead in an instant and were gone, their automated brains heedless of the destruction they caused. A single missile streaked from each, impacting on the roof and detonating in twin concussive flashes.

The resulting carnage was visceral. The multitude of tungsten scattershot ripped through shielding, armor, and flesh alike, an unstoppable, unavoidable force that pulped anything in its pass. Most of the aliens didn't even have time to scream, so quick and ruthless was their dismemberment. Pools of multicolored blood oozed onto the ground as the Covenant positions fell silent.

When things finally quieted down and Scott dared to poke his head out of cover, he was stunned by the sight he saw. The Covenant forces on the rooftop were gone, littered in pieces all over the roof and downtown Szófia.

The troopers regrouped in the center of the roof, staying low so as not to silhouette themselves against the sky and provide easy targets for alien snipers.

"Hell yeah!" Kold yelled, looking around at the destruction. "We _wasted _those alien suckers! Look at this! They never knew what hit them. We-"

"Ah, shut up," Dom snapped. "We wasted nothing. Riley's dying down in the lobby, and we didn't even have to storm the roof in the first place." The grenadier stomped off to the side, muttering curses under his breath, and Kold, realizing that no one was sharing his enthusiasm, awkwardly shut up.

Mueller must have been even more torn up, knowing that the decision to storm the roof had been entirely unnecessary. But, then, there was no way he could have known that when he made the decision.

He looked at Scott in surprise. "What in the blazes happened to you?" he asked.

Scott snorted, thinking of what he must look like, covered in bruises and two different colors of blood, his muscles screeching in pain. "Got into a little brawl with a skirmisher," he said, sitting down heavily and reaching for his first-aid pack. He needed to disinfect the cuts and bites he had amassed before they became infected and he contracted some alien disease.

Winters appeared in the squads' HUDs again. "Good work, men," he said. "Reinforcements will be up to secure the hotel shortly, and we're sending up a long-range spotting team for the regiment's howitzer brigade. With that roof as a spotting position, we'll be able to bombard any position in Szófia."

Scott winced as he applied the disinfectant patches to the cuts and bites all over him. Eisen escorted him back down to the lobby so he could get to a proper field medic to treat the bite on his arm. UNSC reinforcements were now swarming into the hotel, preparing to clear out the remainder of the Covenant forces, and an impromptu triage area was being formed in the lobby.

UNSC field triages being the brutally Darwinian environments that they were, they were generally separated into three categories; those who would live no matter what you did for them, those who would die no matter what you did for them, and those who would live only if you did something for them.

Fortunately, Scott fell into the former category, a medic swathing his arm in bandages and disinfecting the wound while simultaneously chiding him on the idiocy of going hand-to-hand with a skirmisher. As the medic wrapped it back up, Scott flexed his arm. "Do you know a Corporal Riley Sanders?" he asked.

The medic slowed. "You mean the guy that took a needle to the side? Yeah, he's here."

Scott swallowed. "Do you think he'll make it?"

The medic's craggy features broke into a grin. "He should. Whoever got the spike out, they did it quick enough to keep him on this side of death's door. We get him back to a proper field hospital, clone him a new lung, and he'll be in fighting shape within a month."

Scott nearly collapsed with relief as the medic moved on to the next wounded trooper. He had done it. Riley would live.

Just then, orders broke across his CNM from Captain Locke. D Company was regrouping outside the hotel, preparing to move into the center of town. Scott retrieved an assault rifle from the cold clutches of a trooper who wouldn't be needing it any longer and trotted outside.

The courtyard of the Zanzibar hotel was now being used as a field headquarters for UNSC command in the area. Soldiers milled about everywhere, and a C5A4 Mobile Command Vehicle was parked in the middle of the courtyard. A squadron of Scorpion tanks headed by two M808G minesweeper variants were rumbling down the main road into town, clearing the road of Covenant energy mines and sending shells into any buildings deemed to still hold any resistance.

Scott grinned. For once, the UNSC was on the advance. For the first time since New Harmony they were victorious, a broken enemy fleeing before their guns. The drumroll of the Scorpions' cannons were like the beat of victory, and for a moment, Scott entertained the fantasy that they might actually drive the Covenant off this planet.

The rest of Scott's squad rejoined him soon enough, and they sought out Captain Locke, the man's tall form and sharp voice easily distinguishable among the crowds of olive-drab clad troopers.

"Sir," Mueller said, avoiding saluting. If there was one thing a superior would get on you about, it was saluting them in a combat zone, which was essentially putting up a signal flag to any enemy sniper that might be watching that there was an officer present. Knowing Locke, the man would probably come back from the dead to haunt them for it, too. "4th Squad, Bravo Platoon, reporting for duty. One man WIA."

Locke looked up from the holographic map of the city on a fold-out table in front of them. "Orders from HIGHCOM just came in," he said. "Tomorrow morning, Charlie and Delta companies are going to be escorting the 24th Armored Squadron of the 143rd Mechanized into the town square, where the Covenant have their field headquarters. It's gonna be brutal; the Covenant are entrenched in every house and shop, and it's going to be bloody work driving them out."

Mueller nodded. "Just the way we like it, sir," he said dutifully.

Locke nodded, already turning to address a nearby staff sergeant on the availability of 40mm grenades for the company's ordnance supply, and as he did, Scott caught a glance of the casualty report list on the side of the table. What he saw chilled him to the bone.

Out of approximately 120 men in D Company, the manifest listed thirty-two as KIA, twenty more as WIA, and five as MIA. Over a third of the company's strength, gone in one battle. If those losses were extrapolated across the regiment, then the 212th was going to be severely understrength for the rest of this campaign.

Of course, that was nothing really new. With the high attrition rate of this war, most of the people in a regiment after a few months were replacements. Other times, forces would be whittled down so small it was almost laughable; in the Battle of Fermion XII, Scott had encountered the remainders of an entire battalion being led by a _staff sergeant_. Still other times units would be joined together to form "mutt units", in order to put full-strength companies and regiments on the battlefield.

Still, Scott had known nearly all of those men and women. He swallowed, attempting to fight back the tears as his hands tightened around his newly-acquired assault rifle until his knuckles whitened. The Covenant were going to die. Of that, he was certain. Szófia would be returned to UNSC hands, as would the planet of Reach. He would see that through even if he died in the process.

And the Covenant would see how the Army retaliated.

**A/N: Every time you don't review, another Army trooper dies a very violent and plasma-y death in some future chapter.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter IV

**A/N: As usual, Halo belongs to Bungie. I think we all know this.**

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

Szófia, Visegrad Province

0340 hours

July 26th, 2552 (UNSC military calendar)

"Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty," Mueller's voice growled, jerking Scott rudely out of his slumber. "Duty calls."

Scott groaned, rolling out from under the shelter of the bench in the courtyard he had fallen asleep under and immediately regretted it. Sometime during the night, while the exhausted remaining soldiers of Delta and Charlie Companies had rested in the courtyard of the Zanzibar hotel in preparation for the next day's assaults, black, threatening thunderclouds had moved in with the speed of fighter jets, and raindrops the size of assault rifles were slashing down from the sky, soaking Scott's fatigues the instant he stepped out into the open.

"Why can't duty call with a hot cup of coffee and some donuts?" Scott muttered, checking to make sure his newly-acquired assault rifle had no water in the breach. After ascertaining it was clear, Scott shivered again and activated the thermal units in his BDUs, driving off some of the cold.

He glanced up at the pitch-black early morning sky, wondering what had happened to the sun that had shined so brightly yesterday. Maybe the planet itself was grieving for the men lost. It was an interesting metaphor, and one Scott would have pursued farther, but unfortunately, his squad leader was not in the mood for any philosophizing with Socrates today. "5th squad, on me," he called, and Scott jogged over, relishing the physical activity to keep himself moving and warm.

It was barely past 3:30 in the morning, local time, he realized. Scott tapped the side of his CNM device, activating the helmet's Low-Light Vision Amplification System, or LLVAS. Immediately, everything was highlighted in a greenish tinge, the silhouettes of friendlies in the courtyard an even darker green. Scott glanced around; the black thunderheads loomed ominously overhead, a harbinger of doom to come. No hints of the rising sun could yet be seen above the mountains of Visegrad, and occasionally, a thunderclap would boom in the distance as jagged lightning suddenly illuminated the ghostly ruins of the city.

_What a day to die_, Scott thought miserably, clutching his rifle tighter in a futile attempt to preserve what little body heat he had left.

"Attention!" called a voice that Scott immediately recognized as Major Neil Dearborn, the acting CO of Charlie and Delta companies, which were lumped together in the 212th's 2nd Battalion. Scott and the rest of the still-waking soldiers in the courtyard turned to see Dearborn standing with Locke Charlie Company's captain, a squat, beetle-browed Ukrainian by the name of Kermich Ivano. Ivano seemed content to let do the major do the talking, however, preferring instead to stand slightly to the right and behind with his arms crossed and a quasi-threatening expression on his face.

Once he was sure he had their attention, Dearborn continued. "Today, Charlie and Delta companies will be spearheading the drive into town, while Alpha and Bravo provide flanking support." There were several grumbles at that, many soldiers yelling half-hearted statements questioning the testicular fortitude of 1st Battalion troops. Scott paid them no mind; he knew all of them would love to take a support position.

Dearborn ignored the calls and continued. He raised a portable holoprojector, activating it and beaming up a large image of the Covenant citadel set up in town square. "This is the Covenant headquarters," he said, to the boos and hisses of several of the new, naïve troopers. The purple-walled structure was lined with conduits pulsing blue as they carried plasma or whatever the hell the aliens ran their systems with. "Now, this structure has an energy shield around it strong enough to deflect aerial bombardment, so air support is unavailable. So, we are taking the next best option." The hologram disappeared, and Dearborn continued.

"We will be escorting elements of the 24th Armored Squadron, 143rd Mechanized Division, to town square, clearing buildings of hostile resistance along the way. Once we reach the square and the Covenant headquarters, the tanks will roll through the energy shield and blow the sumbitch to pieces."

That drew a roar of approval from the soldiers not yet wet enough to feel to depressed. Dearborn ordered the men to regroup in their platoons before stepping down.

Scott was in Second Platoon, so he made a beeline for his platoon leader, a tall, heavily-built man by the name of Charles Walker

Walker quickly gathered up the meager remainders of First Platoon, down from thirty members to twenty-two. Scott's heart ached as he saw the empty spots in their circle, but he kept it to himself. "Good to see you again," Walker said, nodding to Mueller and Miles, who was still 5th squad's de facto leader. "Got separated during the fight."

Mueller gave one his infamous noncommittal grunts, and Miles responded with a bright "thanks, sir." Scott rolled his eyes.

Walker got to the point, explaining that each platoon would be escorting a pair of M808C Scorpions. The "C" variant was the up-gunned and up-armored version of the original Scorpion that was serviced by the UNSC Army, designed for anti-armor combat and equipped with a high-velocity 125mm cannon as opposed to the 90mm version sported by the lighter, faster "B"s that the Marine Corps preferred. Scott was just glad to have the extra firepower, even if the M808Bs were equipped with automated loading systems while the Cs needed a human loader. With eight platoons between the two companies, that meant sixteen tanks would be accompanying them in the assault. The infantry/armored column would split into two; Charlie Company, which had suffered somewhat lesser casualties during the previous day's fighting, would be advancing down the main boulevard, while Delta and the tanks they were escorting would approach from another path. Since Scott was in 2nd Platoon, he would be escorting the second pair of tanks in the Delta column.

_Right in the middle_, Scott thought. _Just where we get screwed over the most if there's an ambush._ He wisely decided not to voice those thoughts out loud as Walker continued. Scott nodded absentmindedly, dutifully replying 'yes, sir,' when prompted like a good little soldier while not really listening that closely. It wasn't that he didn't respect Walker as an officer; quite the contrary, Scott had known the lieutenant for close to seven years, and never once had the man given him a reason to hate him. Anyone that survived that long against the Covenant deserved respect. However, after one had been in the Army for as long as Scott had, all mission briefings started to sound the same. Escort tanks here, blah blah blah, clear buildings, blah blah blah, destroy Covie HQ, quid pro quo. Scott preferred to focus on the whole "staying alive" part of the equation. Which, with close quarters combat inside houses and buildings looming, would likely get very tricky.

It was odd that Scott felt so little fear at the prospect. Maybe he was finally getting desensitized, he wondered. Maybe, after a decade spent fighting xenophobic aliens with no hope of a reprieve, the horrors of war had finally hardened him to what needed to be done.

Scott shrugged and followed his platoon-mates as they headed out the courtyard. As they shuffled out, a staff sergeant was handing out M45 tactical shotgun attachments for the troopers' MA37s. Scott figured with CQC looming in the future, it would be handy to have something that packed a little more punch than an assault rifle. He tapped the staff sergeant on the shoulder as he passed, and she handed him an M45 TS and a bag of 8-gauge Soelkräft shells. Scott muttered his thanks, and she moved on to the next person.

Scott looked back and saw several platoon-members also attacking the M45s to the bottom of their MA37s, with the exception of the grenadiers, who waved their M90 CAWS about casually as if to say "I told you so."

The column of Scorpion tanks Delta was escorting was sitting on one of the roads into town, their massive engines idling and nearly drowning out the thunder of the storm. Their crews lounged outside, swapping conversation and passing cigarettes with covered hands to protect them from the rain, or they were buttoned securely up inside their machines, no doubt laughing their asses off at the infantry suckers that were getting drenched.

_I hate tankers_, Scott decided as he followed Walker and Mueller to the pair of M808Cs they would be escorting. At least they had metal portable shelters they could crawl into. It was the infantryman's lot in life to suffer in every type of weather.

Both of the tank commanders were leaning on their tanks, eyeing the infantry approaching them with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Tankers and infantry had always had a friendly semi-rivalry that really had no basis. Without infantry, tanks were vulnerable to enemy. infantry. Without tanks, infantry were vulnerable to enemy tanks. It was a love-hate relationship.

One of the tank commanders, a heavyset women who Scott's CNM identified as Sergeant Gürgens, glared at the approaching infantry as if they were something unclean. It didn't take Scott long to spot "career soldier" written all over her. She exchanged a few brusque words with Walker before clambering back onto her tank, and Scott thought he heard her say, "Don't screw this one up."

_Well howdy-freakin' do to you, too,_ Scott thought sarcastically in her direction, but wisely kept the words to himself. He couldn't say he was disappointed to see the sergeant pull the hatch back down over her head, sealing her into the metal behemoth.

The other tank crew was a little more friendly. The commander, a squat (a trait all tankers seemed to share, no doubt to better fit inside the cramped interiors of their steeds), mustachioed gentleman by the name of Monterrey. As he spoke with Walker, Scott struck up a conversation with one of the other crewmembers standing outside, sheltering a smoke from the torrential downpour, his nametag reading "Bailey."

"Mind if I borrow your tank?" Scott asked jokingly.

Bailey cocked an eyebrow at him. "Erm?" he said, puffing on the cigarette as another crack of thunder sent a jagged bolt of lightning arcing across the sky.

Scott fought the urge to jump. "You guys are lucky. You get to ride in a nice warm tank and I have to walk."

Bailey seemed to fight the urge to laugh. "That's what you think. I'm a loader; I get to sit in the back of the tank and smell cordite all day. Not very fun." Scott remembered that, while the M808B only required two crewmembers, the larger C's required four; a commander, gunner, loader, and driver. "But," Bailey continued, "my pop was a gunnery sergeant in the Marines. He sat me down the day I intended to enlist, and told me the wisest words he ever said." Baily adopted a gruffer voice. "'Son, if you decide to enlist, whatever you do, don't be a grunt like me, if you care anything about your feet. You can, you find a way to ride.'"

Scott laughed. "Good advice, that."

Bailey nodded, puffing on the cigarette again. "Yup. Pop was a wise old fella. Anyways, I didn't have the eyes or the stomach for piloting, so bam, I ended up riding in one of these suckers." Bailey fondly patted the titanium side of the monolithic tank, and Scott noticed the name "Eviscerator" painted on its side. "Best damn decision I ever made."

He took a long draw on the cigarette, and Scott looked at him. "Those things'll kill you, y'know," he said.

Bailey snorted. "Yeah, I been hearin' that my whole life. It's my vice; they can always clone me a new lung anyways."

Scott had to admit the tanker had a point. What with modern medical technology, smoking was rapidly becoming more popular among the army, after being nearly eradicated in the mid-21st century. Nervous soldiers needed something to calm them down, even if it was nicotine. Besides, there was usually something else that got to them first.

"The Covies'll probably get me first, anyways," Bailey said, completing Scott's thought.

"Yeah," Scott said, casting a nervous glance at the roiling clouds above and getting a splattering of rain on his helmet for the effort. "I imagine an armored column like this is a fat target for Covie anti-armor."

"Nah," Bailey said after another long draw. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. "I heard some talkin' midst the officers last night; they sez we got some electronic warfare birds up there, circling above the cloud cover and masking any signals we emit. Faraday Cage, I think they called it. Anyways, the Covies'll have no idea we're comin' till we start waltzin' down the street."

"Really?" Scott cast another curious glance at the sky. If there were any C709Es up there, they were resolutely refusing to show themselves.

Before the conversation could continue, however, Major Dearborn broke across the CNM. "Begin," he said.

Scott glanced at his mission timer. It was only four in the morning; if the Covies kept the same sleep schedule at humans, they would likely be snoring.

"We'll, gotta go," Bailey said, flicking his cigarette away and grinding the butt into the dirt, a really unnecessary move, as the torrential rain put out the tiny fire as soon as it left the shelter of his hands. "See ya'll in the square." He clambered up the metallic beast's titanium hide, dropping through the hatch.

"Making friends?" Dom teased as Scott rejoined the rest of his squad.

"Shaddup," Scott retorted. "Eyes forward."

"Handles back," Dom finished the phrase.

2nd Platoon split up, forming a loose picket line around the tanks, close enough so that they could take cover behind them if needed but not so close that they would impede the vehicles' movement. The armored column roared to life, eight massive engines spinning up with a cacophony that briefly drowned out the thunder before lurching forward.

_And they're off_, Scott thought as he began to jog, keeping pace with the twin Scorpions he was assigned to escort. The tanks were making good pace; not so fast that they left the infantry behind, but fast enough to move through the city quickly. Their turrets swung back and forth, searching for targets. Scott's LLVAS allowed him to see clearly through the rain and dark, and he periodically raised his rifle, sweeping it along the planes of shattered windows and empty homes, searching for enemy resistance.

Fortunately, the UNSC bombing and artillery support had purposely skipped over the buildings along the sides of the main thoroughfares Charlie and Delta companies were using to advance into town, so the columns were not delayed by moving around collapsed buildings in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, that also meant that there were still intact buildings for the Covenant to set up ambushes in.

The first enemy contact came about six blocks into town. A purple-white beam rifle shot came lancing out of the darkness from above, spearing a soldier from 3rd Platoon in the leg. The woman cried out in pain and fell as her wounded leg could no longer support her weight. As Scott and the other troopers scattered for cover behind the tanks, two of the wounded woman's squadmates seized her under the arms and dragged her back to the medical Warthog in the middle of the convoy.

"Target!" someone called, yelling to be heard over the storm and the tanks. "Buzzard sniper, building, ten o'clock high!"

"On it," replied a voice Scott recognized as Eisen. The sharpshooter had somehow managed to acquire one of the high-powered SRS-99D sniper rifles, his normal DMR slung over his back. The man dropped to one knee, steadying his aim as he acquired the Jackal as a target, ignoring the beam rifle that whizzed past his shoulder.

Scott couldn't help but shake his head at the Jackal's idiocy. To take potshots at a column of tanks it had to be either very brave or very stupid.

Eisen's SRS cracked, the 14.5x114mm Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot round originally designed for anti-materiel work erased the Jackal's stupidity, as well as most of its upper torso, from the universe permanently. Unfortunately, the Covenant could afford to be stupid, sometimes; they had the numbers and the technology to make up for it.

The exchange of sniper fire, however, seemed to wake up the sleeping Covenant forces throughout the city. As the column moved down the city, Scott heard a sudden explosion of plasma and rifle-fire in the distance as Charlie Company ran into their first suitors.

Delta was not to be left behind, however. As the tanks rolled forward, two Shades opened up from around a corner, spitting blue plasma bolts into the air.

"Shades!" yelled Walker. "Get behind cover! Let the tanks deal with it!"

Unfortunately, two young and very foolish recruits chose that very bad moment to be heroes. Perhaps thinking they could take on a pair of Shades by themselves, they broke off from the rest of 2nd Platoon, sprinting towards the corner where the Shades were firing from behind.

"Where are you going?" Walker yelled furiously. "Stay behind the tanks!"

It was too late, however. The Grunts manning the Shades didn't hesitate to fire, not impressed at all with the recruits' bravery. Blue flashes intersected neatly with the two charging recruits, disintegrating most of their bodies into ash.

"Idiots!" Walker yelled impotently, but the fury in his voice was drowned out by the roar of cannonfire as the two M808C's 1st Platoon was escorting rotated their turrets to face the threat. A few blue plasma bolts impacted harmlessly on the tanks' titanium armor. The 125mm high-explosive shells that the Scorpions retaliated with, however, were a different story entirely. Two orange-gold explosions enveloped the hidden gun position, leaving behind only a few pieces of twisted metal to hint that there had once been turrets set up there.

The convoy rolled forward for another few blocks, and then a pair of Ghost hovercraft skittered around the corner, their light plasma cannons strafing the infantry while Elites and Jackals followed behind. Scott dove for cover into the shadow of an alley, peaking out to stroke the trigger, firing a burst that caused a Jackal to crumple to the ground, sans head. More explosions and gunfire sounded from behind, indicating that 3rd and 4th Platoons were seeing some action too.

The attack was brave, but ultimately foolish. The Ghosts' plasma cannons may as well have been spitwads against the up-armored Scorpions. Two booms and a pair of armor-piercing shells later, the hovercrafts had been reduced to their component parts, smoldering pieces scattered across the street. As Scott returned to his platoon, who had knelt down to engage the enemy infantry, Eviscerator's barrel suddenly belched flame as the gunner neatly placed a canister shell in the center of the formation of Covenant infantry. Energy shields flickered briefly and were summarily extinguished as the steel and tungsten balls tore through the Covenant soldiers. The two M808Cs that 1st Platoon was escorting at the fore of the formation cleaned up, their .50 caliber coaxial turrets spitting lead into the fleeing stragglers, even going so far as to run over an Elite that had lost one leg and was trying to crawl away, leaving a long purple streak on the road. Scott fought to keep his stomach down and jogged forwards, MA37 up and ready.

Now, the attack began in earnest. Covenant began clustering in the windows of buildings, setting up turrets and firing down on the escorting soldiers. Ghosts and Revenants-Covenant light tanks equipped with a single plasma mortar-began to make regular appearances, along with supporting infantry. The troopers were forced into a running gun battle, many falling victim to plasma bolts and needles from above. The Scorpions helped, blowing apart any Covenant that dared challenge their superior firepower and neatly dropping canister and HE shells into tenth-story windows to clear out any Covenant above. However, with the magnitude of the Covenant assault, it was only time before the first major casualty was incurred.

Scott had just reloaded after a particularly vicious gun battle with an insane group of Grunts when the hit came. Scott's CNM suddenly lit up with the signatures of a group of Grunts. A dozen of the simian aliens came sprinting-no, that wasn't really a good term to describe it-came _flailing _out of a nearby building, each carrying a massive explosive tank on their back. Scott's eyes widened; he knew those Grunts. The troopers named them "boomers"; little fellows that wandered into battle with nothing but explosive plasma tanks and an excess of courage. Recognizing the danger, the driver of the Scorpion nearest them desperately tried to reverse and bring his turret to bear, but the Grunts had materialized from a building too close, and were already within the massive machine's dead zone. Before the escorting Marines could draw a bead on them, the Grunts detonated their plasma tanks.

The Scorpion was momentarily swallowed by repetitive flashes of blue light, so bright and hot it evaporated nearby rain instantly, causing ghostly steam to rise from the shattered wreck of the tank.

Over the CNM, Scott heard Locke cursing. "2nd Platoon, clear that building!" he called out. Scott groaned, but understood. The column had to keep moving, which meant that the second-in-line would have to clear the sides. Even as Walker ordered 4th and 1st squads over to the two-story shop the boomers had waddled out of, Sergeant Gürgens' tank was pulling up to replace the destroyed Scorpion.

Scott sprinted over to the shop, sliding the first eight shells into his M45 TS as he did so. Room clearing was a specialized art; the room would be divided into sectors, and each man had to worry about the threats only in his sector, or the whole thing would fall apart. It was something that required extreme discipline, as well the utmost faith in your partners.

Scott tightened his grip on his assault rifle/shotgun as Walker eased open the door and tossed a flashbang grenade inside. As soon as he heard it go off, he yelled, "Go!"

Scott was the second man through the door. The woman in front of him received a plasma bolt to the skull immediately, steam hissing from her carbonized flesh and bone as she spun away. Ignoring the grotesque scene, Scott raised his rifle, his CNM allowing him to pick out the silhouettes of the aliens occupying the room even through the haze of smoke left over by the flashbang. He centered his reticle on the form of a blue-armored Elite and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The massive recoil kicked against his shoulder, and through the haze of smoke he saw the saurian's shields flash bright before overloading as they futilely tried to repel the powerful shell. Scott racked the pump and fired again; this time, the 8\-gauge Soelkräft shell tearing the alien's chest cavity apart.

With the Elite no longer a factor in the firefight, Scott followed his instincts and dove to the left just as a stream of plasma evaporated all water vapor in the air he had just occupied. He landed heavily behind a couch-apparently the place was a furniture store-which promptly caught fire as a Grunt peppered it with plasma. Scott peaked out with his MA37 and put a burst of 7.62 into the alien's skull, ensuring that the creature would cause no further damage to the nice piece of furniture.

The rest of the aliens on the first floor, a combination of Jackals, Grunts, and a pair of skirmishers, were dispatched easily by a combination of MA37 and shotgun fire.

There were more rooms to the place, some leading off to the back and a set of stairs leading up to a second floor. Major Dearborn broke across the CNM. "Lieutenant," he said, addressing Walker. "We've got confirmed Covenant anti-armor in that shop. Clear it out and return to the convoy ASAP." He vanished without even waiting for confirmation.

"Mueller," Walker said. "You take your men upstairs, clear the second floor. We'll mop up down here."

"Understood, sir," Mueller said, before turning. "4th squad, on me!"

Scott's heard hammered as they pounded up the flight of stairs, smashing open the door to the gallery room upstairs. The wall had been blasted out, exposing the shop to the rain and wind, as well as providing a perfect view of the advancing Convoy for the quartet of fuel rod cannon-toting heavy Grunts and their Jackal supervisors.

"Light 'em up!" Mueller yelled as the Jackals screeched in alarm, attempting to activate their arm shields. The UNSC troopers didn't give them time; swift fire from assault rifles, shotguns, and Eisen's DMR removed the Grunts as a factor from the firefight, while Scott loaded another shell into the breech of his M45 and neatly removed the upper torso of one of the Jackals. The other one went down just as quickly, a single 7.62x51mm shell from Eisen's M392 lodged in its forehead.

They headed back downstairs, regrouping with the surviving members of 1st squad, of which, Scott noted with chagrin, only Walker and three others remained. No words, only a few brief nods were exchanged, before the troopers charged back into the rain and the firefight.

Just in time to witness the unthinkable.

A pair of Hunters charged in from a nearby side street, heading directly for 2nd Platoon. Scott's blood chilled at the sight of them; Hunters were one of a UNSC Army trooper's worst nightmares. The ultra-heavy infantry units wore armor composed of some near-impenetrable alloy. Nearly twelve feet tall, with a built-in fuel rod cannon in their armor and a shield they used as a vicious melee weapon, a single Hunter pair could lay waste to an entire platoon of soldiers, which they proved now.

The panicked UNSC soldiers opened up, bullets pinging off the impenetrable armor like spittle. The smart troopers didn't even bother shooting, instead diving for cover as the Hunters' cannons charged up.

Scott was one of them, rolling to the ground as the blistering heat of the fuel-rod cannon swept over him. He looked up just in time to see the twin beams sweep across the soldiers of 2nd Platoon. The screams of half a dozen men and women were abruptly cut off as the green beam swept across them, atomizing their bodies in the space of a millisecond, leaving only legs lying in a pile of ash.

Farther down the street, a soldier knelt and fired an M41 Jackhammer rocket launcher at one of the alien behemoths. The 102mm rocket streaked into the blue armor, detonating against the shield.

The Hunter was still standing; its armor was blackened, its shield askew, and its spines shattered, but it was still standing.

Scott wisely got up and sprinted for cover again as the Hunters began to charge up in preparation for another volley. A grenadier fired a 40mm grenade, the weapon exploding against the wounded Hunter's shield. The Hunter merely grunted at the annoyance.

But it gave the rocket jockey down the street time to fire again. This time, the rocket slipped past the Hunter's shield, finding a crack in its armor and detonating.

The Hunter blew apart, blackened and smoking bits of the weird worms that made up its body flying across the newly-created crater in the pavement. It's partner roared in grief and anguish at the loss of its bond partner before turning its cannon on the Scorpion tank nearest them, the Eviscerator.

The Eviscerator turned to face it. And it did not need to charge up its cannon.

The Hunter vanished. There was no better word for it, the massive alien simply removed from existence by a 125mm HE shell, leaving only another smoking crater scattered with bits of armor and smoking gibbets of orange flesh.

A ragged cheer went up from the remains of 2nd Platoon, but there was no time to celebrate the minor victory. For the Hunters had only been a distraction.

A primeval roar split the early-morning air, and Scott whirled around to find its source. A massive Elite stood atop a pile of crumbled masonry, its burnished golden armor reflecting the light of the energy sword it held aloft. With impeccable and poetic timing, a flash of jagged lightning arced across the sky, accentuating the reptilian alien's terrifying features.

"Smoke the bastard!" Walker yelled, but it was too late. Even as Scott and the rest of the troopers opened up, their rounds pinging uselessly off the Elite's glowing shields, the alien charged forwards towards the Scorpion. A foolish trooper tried to block its way, holding out his assault rifle in a brave, if stupid, attempt to delay it.

The Elite had no trouble obliging the trooper's apparent death wish. In a movement almost too fast to follow, the Elite lashed out, the energy sword neatly bisecting the trooper's rifle; and the trooper, as well.

The trooper died instantly, and expression of shock and pain frozen on his features as one half of his body fell one way, and one the other. With remorseless intent, the Elite continued, leaping atop the Scorpion tank as it's fifty caliber turret tried to track it and failed.

Scott watched, shocked, as the Elite plunged its sword into the Eviscerator's hatch, the super-hot blade melting through the titanium armor in an instant. The metal peeled back under the intense heat, and the Elite reached in, like a child searching the bottom of a candy bowl, and hauling out one of the crewmembers.

It was Bailey. Scott's heart froze as he saw the young man, dangling helplessly in the Elite's grasp and screaming like a little girl. The tanker threw a wild punch at the Elite, which the Elite dodged easily before sliding his blade into Bailey's gut.

"No!" Scott yelled, but it was too late. Bailey was dead near-instantly, his insides boiled and cooked and his spine severed. He went limp on the blade, and the Elite plucked him off with disgust, flinging the lifeless corpse away like garbage before attempting to reach in for the next one.

An earsplitting bang echoed off the artificial walls of the cityscape as an SRS-99D sniper rifle fired. The 14.5x114mm slug caught the Elite right between the forehead, knocking out its shields in a flash and sending it stumbling backwards off the tank. Stunned, the Elite tried to rise, but without shields and in the midst of a bunch of angry Army troopers, it lasted about as long as a fart in vacuum. Bullet holes riddled its torso, and it fell back to the street, purple blood leaking onto its golden armor.

That threat eliminated, Walker attempted to wave the Scorpion up, but Eviscerator refused to move. "What the hell?" Walker demanded over the CNM. "Get moving!"

"Our loader's dead!" Monterrey called back. "We're combat ineffective unless you can spare someone!"

Walker's eyes flashed around before settling on Scott, who was the closest to the tank. "Anderson! Get in the tank!"

Scott stuttered. "What? But sir, I've never-"

"Does it look like I give a frick?" Walker yelled. "We need that armor support. Now get over there!"

"Sir!" Scott said, slinging his rifle over the magnetic clamps on his back and sprinting to the tank. He clambered up the metal skin, made slick by the pounding rain, and swung himself down through the hatch.

The first thing that struck him about the interior of the tank was how cramped it was. For such a massive machine, the crew had surprisingly little room to sit. Instrument dials and displays covered nearly every interior surface of the machine, the whole thing dimly illuminated in blue light. Scott found himself suddenly not envying tankers as much as he used to.

However, it was also surprisingly warm, what with four men being jammed inside the tiny thing, something that Scott was immediately grateful for as his sopping fatigues began to dry out.

"You our replacement loader?" asked Monterrey, his tone sharp.

"Guess so," Scott said, the sounds of plasma and rifle fire growing louder outside. "But I don't have any experience with-"

"Doesn't matter," Monterrey said. "Just take a seat back there," he said, pointing to a chair-well, actually, more of a ridge carved out of the metal-in the back, with dozens of shells stacked behind it in a super-armored compartment. The ammunition magazine. "Marford'll explain the rest."

"Sir," Scott said, contorting his body around the harsh contours of the tank's interior into the loader's seat, up in the turret of the tank with the gunner, a man who Scott's CNM identified as Roger Marford.

"Better learn fast," Roger said as the tank began to roll forward again under the guidance of Dmitri Tatrov, the driver. "Or we'll all be dead."

Roger, Scott figured, was not the kind of man who practiced at inspiring confidence.

"Short tutorial," Roger continued. "Behind you is the ammunition magazine. Inside are four types of shells with different colorings on the tips. Memorize them fast: red is high-explosive, yellow is canister, and blue is armor-piercing. I'll call for a shell, you retrieve it and insert it into the breach in front of you. Once that's done, close the breach, slap my shoulder, and plug your ears. _Kopische?_"

"Ye-" Scott began, but he didn't even have time to finish his sentence as Monterrey called out, "Target! Enemy anti-armor, eight o'clock high!" Scott glanced at the video screen in front of him and saw what Monterrey was talking about. A Covenant anti-tank plasma cannon had been set up in one of the windows of the upper story of an apartment building.

"HE!" Roger called, and Scott spun around, trembling hands reaching into the ammo magazine. _Red, _he thought. _High explosive is red._ It made sense, in a destructive sort of way.

Scott's fingers closed around a shell of the correct color and he hefted it, running his fingers over the smooth metal that encased the 125mm shell and wondering at its weight. He twisted and inserted the shell point-first into the breach of the Scorpion's massive M884 RHV cannon, closing the breach behind it and locking the shell.

"Loaded!" he called, slapping Roger on the back.

"Firing!" Roger called, and punched his toe forward against the trigger as Scott belatedly remembered to cover his ears.

The blast was deafening, the acrid smell of cordite suddenly filling the small space, causing Scott to hack up what felt like half of a lung. The blazing-hot empty shell casing was automatically ejected out the side of the turret, falling, smoking to the pavement outside where the driving rain extinguished it with a hiss.

Roger's aim was impeccable. Scott saw the shell streak into the upper story of the apartment building, the Covenant anti-armor swallowed by an orange-gold explosion before they could even fire a shot, bits of cracked masonry raining down on the street and forcing the troopers outside to take cover.

Roger was quite a shot, Scott learned over the course of the next few minutes, capable of dropping shells neatly into ten-story windows or neatly catching a nimble Ghost with a quick shot. The Scorpion's automated targeting system did much of the work, but it still took a skilled operator to work it with the proficiency Roger obviously had.

Monterrey continued to call out targets and Roger shells, and Scott began to get the hang of it. "Target!" Monterrey said. "Revenant, two o'clock."

"AP," Roger said unhesitatingly as Tatrov maneuvered the massive tank like a race car, avoiding the plasma mortar shot the Covenant light tank lobbed at them. Scott obligingly slid the correct blue-tipped shell into the breach and slammed it shut, covering his ears as the cannon roared its fury.

The steel-tipped shell passed right through the armor of the Revenant and punched a hole clean through. The craft's anti-gravity array sputtered and died, and the nose of the light tank dipped forward, snagging the ground and flipping over and over in a series of gut-wrenching crashes before finally exploding.

Amazingly, the Elite that had been riding shotgun had been thrown free and avoided the crash. It rose to its feet, spitting plasma fire from its rifle at the UNSC troopers that closed in on it. Monterrey opened up with the .50 caliber coaxial, the high-powered rounds slicing through the alien's personal shields like butter and separating upper body from lower body in a very gruesome display.

Scott had no time to gape, however, as a squad of Jackals escorting suicide Grunts came charging out of a nearby alley, the Jackals forming a close formation with their shields to prevent the UNSC troopers from opening up on the highly-volatile plasma tanks on the Grunt's backs.

What they didn't take into account was that an energy shield, strong as it was and with the massive advantage it provided against UNSC infantry, was about as effective as a sheet of paper against a 125mm canister shell. Roger punched the trigger, the barrel recoiled, and the shell landed right in the middle, literally tearing the formation of alien foot-soldiers apart with a combination of tungsten balls and the subsequent secondary explosions of the boomers' plasma tanks.

Before Scott could rejoice in the minor victory, however, a much larger threat loomed.

"Wraiths!" someone yelled over the CNM.

Scott's blood chilled. "Wraith" was the UNSC reporting name for the Covenant heavy tanks, equipped with a plasma mortar capable of vaporizing half of an up-armored Scorpion in a single shot.

Two of the massive, hulking tanks appeared in front of the armored column, their dark blue, beetlelike hulls bristling with the massive plasma mortar components. They opened fire simultaneously, the blinding blue-white light of the encapsulated plasma turning night into day as they arced across the sky towards Sgt. Gürgen's tank. The Scorpion fired desperately in return, a testament to the training of UNSC tank crews, but the round was off its mark, skipping off the Wraith's rounded armor with a shower of sparks, leaving behind only a vicious tear in the hull.

The plasma shells, however, were a different story entirely. As the bolts made contact with the tank's metallic skin, the coating that encased them dissolved, allowing the white-hot plasma inside to detonate. Scott was forced to avert his eyes and when he returned them, he saw that the tank was gone. Simply gone. It seemed wrong, that almost 80 tons of sheer metal could vanish in an instant, but the smoking crater in the road offered proof, proof that was only substantiated further by the vaporization of several unfortunate troopers that had been standing too near the Scorpion at the time of its demise, as well as the scorch marks on the surviving 1st Platoon M808C.

Roger cursed softly, but there was no time to mourn. "AP!" he called, and Scott obligingly slid the armor-piercing shell into the breach. Roger fired, and Scott's eyes followed the streak of the shell as it impacted against the frontal armor of the Wraith. The front armor dented massively, and the Wraith reeled back as the shell skipped off again. "HE!" Roger said again, and Scott reacted instinctively, figuring that the gunner had the types of shells required to take down a Wraith memorized better than he did.

He was right. The work begun by the work begun by the armor-piercing shell was finished by the high-explosive, the round punching into the interior of the alien tank and detonating. The Wraith blew apart from the inside in a spectacular blue detonation.

The remaining Scorpion in 1st Platoon darted forward to avoid another plasma mortar shot from the remaining Wraith. This was where Scorpions had the advantage over Covenant armor. The M884 RHV cannon outranged the plasma mortar in the flat trajectory, as well as firing a considerably faster projectile, but its principle advantage was that it was mounted on a rotating turret, whereas the Wraith's cannon was fixed, meaning that the entire tank had to rotate to fire at a target. The Scorpion darted forward, its .50 caliber opening up, blowing divots out of the Wraith's armor at the same time that the Wraith's smaller plasma turrets fired, melting armor off the human vehicle.

The Scorpion fired then, and at nearly point-blank range, the effects of the armor-piercing shell were devastating. The shell punched completely through the Wraith in a straight line, leaving a hole one could see through. At least, before the Wraith crashed down to the ground, its anti-gravity array failing, and detonated.

Several troopers cheered, and Locke's voice broke across the CNM, Scott inwardly rejoicing that the captain had survived. "Monterrey," he said, "move your tank up. Take the lead position."

"Understood," Monterrey responded, and Tatrov drove the tank up to replace the hole left in the formation after the destruction of the Scorpion.

Over the next few minutes, the armored/infantry column drove inexorably towards the center of town, the M808Cs blowing apart any entrenched enemy positions or vehicles while the infantry guarded them from attack, running alongside the metal behemoths and firing their rifles with ferocity. It felt nice, Scott thought, to be for once driving the Covenant away instead of the other way around.

The end of the drive came sooner than Scott expected. After fighting for every foot of the metal canyons of the city, the speed with which the town square loomed up ahead was startling. Scott saw the remainders of Charlie Company's forces pulling in on the other side of the square, trapping the Covenant forces in the middle.

A brief but furious firefight with the remaining Covenant troops and vehicles raged, but a few HE and canister shells eliminated the remainder fairly quickly. The Covenant HQ stood in the middle of the square, where a large statue of some colonial official had once stood. Its smooth lines and contours were so different from the squat, angular shape of UNSC firebases, the purple-pink coloration only furthering its strange shape. The energy field that was protecting it from harm extended all around it in a half-sphere shape, glowing and pulsing a bluish-purple. Plasma turrets were mounted all over the surface, their barrels crackling with energy as they warmed up. Any UNSC forces to enter the energy field would almost certainly be butchered the instant they set foot inside.

For what it was worth, that put the two groups at an impasse. However, the Covenant's energy field, while extremely strong, had neglected to take into account the rotating nature of UNSC turrets. For the UNSC, said turrets were the way to break that impasse.

Every tank commander in the square thought the same thing, and as one, the Scorpions maneuvered so that their turrets were facing backwards. Scott felt the turret spin until he was facing the energy field, and his throat went dry as Tatrov slowly backed the tank up.

All around the Covenant base, M808Cs encircled it, turrets facing backwards as they tightened the circle. Then, as one, they accelerated in reverse, sending just the barrels of their turrets through the field, using the Covenant's own shield against them in an ironic twist.

The Scorpions fired as one, the HE shells blowing gaping holes in the armor and dropping the energy shield as its power source was destroyed. However, that shield, while dropping the alien defense, also no longer sheltered the tank. The plasma turrets on the base opened up, and two more Scorpions were destroyed, but the die had already been cast.

As soon as Major Dearborn received word that the shield had been dropped, he sent the word to the regiment's twelve M-499 Viper Self-Propelled Artillery Carriages. A pass by an overhead C709E confirmed the firing coordinates, and the Vipers' 155mm Gauss railguns fired, sending their payload onto the Covenant headquarters at hypersonic velocities.

The Covenant base blew up.

Scott's eyes were blinded by the sudden flash of purple light, bright spots dancing in front of his vision. When he managed to crack them open again, he saw in shock that the Covenant headquarters was utterly destroyed, massive pieces of smoking wreckage littered over the square.

As the UNSC troopers began to cheer, Scott made his way out of the Eviscerator, shaking the hands of each of the crewmembers as they congratulated and thanked him for his effective, if impromptu, service as a loader. He slid down the rain-slicked side of the vehicle, stepping back out into the driving wetness.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance as Lieutenant Walker ran up to him, his face stretched wide in a grin. "Helluva job, private," he said. Scott smiled and rejoined his squad, who he was relieved to see were all unharmed.

"Tell ya what man," Scott said to Mueller as UNSC troops and vehicles from the rest of the city began rolling into the square, "I ain't ever gonna say nothin' bad 'bout a tanker ever again."

**A/N: Will hopefully be getting into a semi-regular update schedule now. If my schedule allows, you can probably expect a new chapter weekly. Reviews, of course, always make me inclined to write faster. See how this works?**

**Also, internet cookies to anyone who guesses what game the idea for the tank escort mission is based off of. **


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter V

**A/N: Sorry if this chapter's a little shorter than usual. As I predicted, this week was busy, but I did manage to get this up by Friday where I live. Also, internet cookies to anonymous reviewer "arby" who correctly guessed the tank escort scene in Chapter IV was inspired by the Aachen mission in Call of Duty: Finest Hour. **

**Anyways, here goes.**

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

Babd Catha Ice Shelf, Eposz

1118 hours, August 8th, 2552 (UNSC military calendar)

"Yo, Scotty, we've got a game of five-card goin' on over at Locke's hole; wanna join?"

Scott cracked his eyelids open as Dom's voice startled him out of his slumber. Blinking several times to clear his vision, he focused on the form of the grenadier standing at the rim of their foxhole.

Foxhole. It was really too grandiose a term for the shallow pit that had been hewn out of the frozen, gritty dirt with his and Dom's E-tools. Nevertheless, it had been Scott's home for the past few days and looked like it was shaping up to be so for a while, so he figured he had better get used to it, even with the pool of water that had collected in the bottom that froze every night and melted every morning.

Scott thought about it and shrugged. "Sure," he muttered, rolling to his feet and gathering up his Army-issue poncho, pulling the article around his freezing ACUs and armor. He slung his MA37 across his back and got to his feet.

Dom leaned down, extending a hand, and Scott grabbed it, the grenadier helping to pull him out of the foxhole.

As soon as he was out of the marginal shelter of the hole, Scott was blasted by the viciously cold, bitter wind that seemed to be the constant curse of northern Eposz. Here, near the Babd Catha Ice Shelf, the wind was an omnipresent feature, coming off the ocean and the ice at incredible speeds and bone-chilling cold. Scott cursed under his breath, drawing up his balaclava to cover his face, warding off the fell wind.

Apparently just as desperate to get out of the wind, Dom hunkered down, and Scott followed him as they dropped into the shallow trench hacked out of the earth that ran all along the 212th Regiment's lines, connecting the foxholes and dugouts.

After the 212th's deployment to Visegrad and the beating they had taken during the fight for Szófia, HIGHCOM had figured that the regiment deserved a rest. The 9th Army Expeditionary Unit had been the tip of the spear that drove into Visegrad. That tip had done its duty, but had been broken and blunted during the process. The 43rd AEU had reassumed the lead in the push into Visegrad, while the 9th and its component parts were supposed to have been rotated back to the rear of the offensive for a rest.

Of course, plans never seemed to work out, especially when those plans involved giving a brief break to battle-weary soldiers. The Covenant incursion had advanced apace, with alien forces driving deep into northern Eposz. The 9th AEU had been deployed up into the Babd Catha Ice Shelf to halt their advance. The 212th Regiment had been called in to relieve and bolster the beleaguered forces of the 3rd AEU, to which the security of the northern Eposz region had been entrusted. A Covenant corvette had apparently dropped in and besieged and ONI intelligence base in the area, and the 3rd had been cut nearly to pieces by the sudden attack. The base, which local forces were referring to as "Sword", had been saved only by the reported timely intervention of a team of Spartans. However, even though alien forces had been driven away from the base itself, the Covenant threat in the Babd Catha region remained obstinate, probing UNSC lines constantly.

Scott looked around. What they could want up here, in this forsaken, ice-locked land, no one knew. Despite the fact that it was still early August and snow had yet to fall on the ground outside of the ice shelf itself, it frosted nearly every night, and soldiers were often forced to activate their thermal units during the night, crowding around small portable heaters in the trenches. Frostbite during the night and hypothermia due to the constant freezing moisture became nearly as much of a threat as the alien forces, to the point where many soldiers could be heard saying that they'd almost welcome death by plasma, since at least it would be warm.

And then there were the trenches. Scott snorted. The 9th had been shipped up here not even a week ago, and their first order had been to dig a line of trenches to establish a solid defensive position. Digging _anything _in the frozen dirt was backbreaking work, and the soldiers of the 9th AEU had labored for days with their entrenching tools to hack out a tenable defensive position in the hard-packed dirt, assisted by several backhoes that local construction companies had been kind enough to lend. The cooperative line of the 9th and 3rd Army Expeditionary Units currently extended from the port of Hidegvíz-which Scott had learned was literally Hungarian for "coldwater"-in the north to Sword Base in the south, a solid twenty miles of terrain. Hidegvíz was-much more importantly now that the Covenant had invaded-also the site of a large "wet" UNSC Navy base, meaning that it was the base of the branch of the Navy that actually operated on real water. As long as the port was held, that meant that civilians could be evacuated and supplies could be shipped in.

Why did tactically crucial points always seems to exist in the most unforgiving environments possible? While the 212th had been posted in the south, nearer to Sword Base and Fargas Lake, it was still cold in the fall.

Stepping over soldiers that were curled up, sleeping in the trench, Dom led Scott down the line a few dozen yards until they reached a dugout that had been tunneled down several meters into the frozen earth, the entrance shored up with pieces of steel and duracrete. This was the CP of Delta Company, comprised of a main communications and command room and several smaller rooms for troops to bunk in.

Dom led the way into the dugout, the soldiers dropping down the earthen step and ducking into the dugout. Battery-powered floodlights were set against the walls, illuminating the interior of the hole. In order to make the place more resistant to Covenant plasma bombardment, the walls and ceiling had been strengthened with duracrete, giving the dugout the feel of a concrete cave.

Moving through the bustle of traffic of officers and NCOs around the large holotable in the middle of the command room, the two troopers ducked into one of the smaller rooms off to the side, which appeared to be sleeping quarters of some sort, judging by the roughly man-sized holes that had been hewn out of the walls and the tousled sleeping articles contained therein.

In the center of the room, however, a small fold-out table was set up, several soldiers seated around it. Scott didn't recognize any of them other than Corporal Jerry Bruzscinski, the squad's replacement for the late Corporal Sanders.

Scott's heart clenched automatically at that thought. Shortly after the 212th had retaken Szófia, Scott had received word that Riley had died en route to the field hospital. It was not, however, from the injury he received during battle; instead, the troop transport Warthog he had been riding back to the field hospital had hit a pothole in the road and flipped. He was crushed by the troop cage in back.

It seemed so wrong, Scott thought, for a man to come through the fighting alive, if wounded, and then be killed the next day by something as trivial as a rollover.

"Ya'll bring the chips?" drawled the dealer, a black, heavily bearded trooper that Scott recognized as Sergeant Parker Willis.

"I did," Dom responded as he took a seat, pulling a bag out of a pocket in his tac vest. He glanced over at Scott. "I'm assuming you did as well."

"No fear," Scott said, reaching into a pocket and retrieving the "chips."

Now, since having cash on the front lines was really quite pointless, and only encouraged theft, all soldiers received their pay by an electronic deposit in their bank accounts. However, soldiers were born gamblers, and they automatically found a work-around for that problem; they played with meal coupons.

Scott set down his bag of coupons that he had amassed over the past two weeks. The coupons were used by UNSC troopers in the field in order to simplify the feeding process. Each trooper was "paid" in coupons once a week, and whenever they could, they would go to the field kitchen, give the cooks a coupon for the meal they wanted, and get fed in that manner. The coupon system was an effective complement to the 48-hour ration packs that troopers learned to hate just as much as the Covenant.

They weren't cash, but they worked just fine for poker purposes.

Scott settled into his seat as Willis dealt out the cards. It was nice to sometimes just be able to relax and play a friendly game of poker, anything to take his mind off the killing.

"This has got to be the shittiest line I've ever been posted on," one of the other troopers grumbled around the unlit cigar in his mouth. "Who in sam heck came up with the idea of posting us out here?"

"I blame ONI," another responded. "If it weren't for their precious base, we'd be somewhere else. Somewhere warm," he added with a shiver.

"Yeah," Dom said as the hand finished. He sighed, seeing that one of the other troopers' full house took the pile of coupons in the middle. "What's so special about this 'Sword Base' anyways?"

"Who knows?" Willis responded as he dealt the new hand. "ONI's always been a bunch of smug bastards. It's probably their secret clubhouse or something."

Scott chuckled at that and, as the first betting commenced, he slid forward a coupon for a scrambled-eggs and bacon breakfast with coffee, feeling confident in his Ace and King of Spades.

Dom whistled; the scrambled-eggs, bacon, and coffee combination was a much-sought after prize among the Army trooper ranks

The game lasted for another good half-hour, meal coupons exchanging hands frequently as the conversation wandered. Enlisted men being enlisted men, the conversation turned to what it always did when there were no superiors around; officers. Or, more specifically, the perceived incompetency of said officers.

"…and so we all jump out of the 'hog, right? We're divin' for cover every which way, trying to return fire, and the second looey decides to take matters into his own hands." The speaker was PFC Patrick Delaney, a tall, gangly young man across the table from Scott, relating a tale about a former 2nd Lieutenant platoon leader he had served under.

"Now," Delaney continued as the hand ended and Dom took the pot, "based on this guy's previous track record, we're all gettin' pretty worried, right? So, he takes an M9 and lobs it towards the Jackals up the hill. Except this _idiot _forgot to pull the pin!"

Scott broke into a grin as the next hand began, and one of the other troopers who was also in Delaney's squad, a Private Dale Richardson, was cracking up at the memory.

"So he waits for ten seconds," Delaney continued, wiping tears away from his eyes, "and nothing happens, right? So then he throws another. And he forgets _again!_"

"Oh, you gotta be shittin' me," Willis said incredulously as the betting commenced. Delaney shook his head. "Nah, I'm dead serious. So, as you'd expect, this 'nade doesn't go off either. So, then, with plasma fire flashing all around us, he turns to the sergeant with his eyes wide open and says in the most serious tone possible, 'My 'nades are all duds! Give me some of yours!'."

Scott cracked up at that, and Richardson was nearly splitting his sides with laughter.

Delaney waited until his audience was at a semi-attentive state again before continuing. "So our radioman finally manages to call in some air support, and takes out the Covies on the top of the hill. And then, one of the grenades he threw gets thrown back down the hill by the explosion and it rolls over to Richardson here's foot, and he picks it up, walks back over to the second looey and says…" Delaney paused and gestured over to Richardson to finish.

Richardson immediately adopted a serious tone as he took Delaney's cue. "Excuse me, sir. I do believe you dropped this on your way out."

The soldiers around the table roared at that, the poker game momentarily forgotten as they embraced the hilarious tale and the brief respite from the brutal reality of war it provided. "What happened next?" Dom asked.

"Oh, he went as red as a Revenant and threatened to demote him if he spread the story," Delaney said. "So, of course, we told everyone immediately."

"Didn't he get on you?" Willis asked.

Delaney abruptly sobered up. "He stopped a plasma bolt with his head the next day."

The laughter abruptly died down at that, fizzling out awkwardly as the harsh reality filtered back.

"I'm sorry, man," Dom said quietly.

Delaney sighed. "Yeah, he was an idiot sometimes, but he had a good heart. Just the type of man this war loves to kill."

After that, the game fizzled out as soldiers were called back for various reasons. Scott and Dom left the command bunker and made their way back down the line towards their foxhole.

They were about halfway there, ducking under a walkway that stretched above the trench, when it happened.

"Incoming!" someone called down the line.

Immediately, everyone in the trench dove to the floor as the crackling sound of an incoming plasma mortar shell became audible. Scott hit the dirt and curled up, covering his head with his hands.

The shell impacted on the ground in front of the trench, blowing a twenty-foot wide hole in the ground. The intense heat melted the frozen soil around it, causing steam to rise from the frozen ground.

Scott cracked one eye open, wondering if that had been it, if some Grunt had just had an itchy trigger finger, but as he did, the sound came again, this time much greater in intensity.

"Take cover!" someone yelled unnecessarily, as everyone with a head on their shoulders was immediately diving for protection at the bottoms of their trenches and foxholes.

Figuring it was more dangerous to try and run to his foxhole in the middle of a bombardment than to stay where he was, Scott rolled under the walkway, curling up in as tight a ball as he could and praying.

The plasma shells began to slam into the earth all around at regular intervals, shaking the earth with the tremendous force of their explosions. Occasionally, the shells would impact on the line itself or a foxhole, prompting the instant vaporization of those troopers lucky enough to be hit directly and the agonizing screams of those unlucky enough to be _merely wounded. _

It was times like these that seemed to take years to pass. How long the bombardment lasted, Scott had no idea. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. Eventually, the UNSC artillery pieces behind the defensive line began to return fire, the screaming wails of 155mm shells doing battle with the crackling explosions of Covenant plasma mortars as they locked in on the source of the plasma blasts. Scott stuffed fingers in his ears, futilely attempting to drown out the massive wave of sound.

When the bombardment finally stopped, it didn't trickle out as one might have expected. Instead, it seemed to halt all at once, the sudden silence as unnerving as the attack had been. Slowly, haltingly, the Army troopers began to poke their heads back up from wherever they had dove to, peering out across the no-man's-land between the human and Covenant lines, newly riddled with craters. The drifting smoke from UNSC artillery shells mingled with the steam released by plasma mortar explosions to form a shifting cloud of fog across the semi-frozen ground.

Engineers began to climb out of the trenches, advancing forwards to plug the gaps that had been blown in the electric-barbed wire that was posted in front of the UNSC line with new wire. At the same time, Winters' voice broke over Scott's CNM. "Be advised, satellite intel shows enemy light skirmish forces advancing on the line."

Without another word, the UNSC troops all immediately rushed to the edge of the trenches, prepping to repel the enemy assault. There was a series of metallic clicks and snaps along the line as weapons were locked and loaded. Scott pulled back the bolt of his MA37, loading the first of the magazine's 32 7.62x51mm rounds. All along the UNSC line, barrels began to emerge from the firing slits that had been carved out of the earth; MA37s, M392 DMRs, and M6J carbines poked out to face the no-man's-land, while behind the line in the secondary foxholes, grenadiers, rocket jockeys, and sniper/spotter teams prepared their deadly tools.

The engineers finished setting up the wire in a hurry, prepping the land-mines buried in the no-man's-land for detonation as they scuttled back to the safety of the trenches.

For a long moment, nothing happened. It was almost eerily silent across the cold battlefield. A howling, bitter wind blew across the no-man's-land, creating shifting patterns in the fog that startled several new recruits, firing quick bursts at non-existent enemies. A few hushed reprimands from squad leaders were heard, and the recruits, shame-faced, left their fingers off the triggers.

Then, they heard it. The whine of Covenant anti-gravity engines and the distinctive "Wort, wort, wort!" battle cry of Elites.

"Prepare to fire!" came the cry from Locke, who had emerged from the command bunker.

Scott checked to make sure his weapon was primed and loaded, his hands shaking in anxiety. Satisfied, he pushed the weapon through the firing slit that had been dug into the dirt and trained the crosshairs on his HUD on the no-man's-land.

A squadron of Ghost attack craft came roaring out of the mist, plasma cannons spitting bolts into the UNSC lines. Scott didn't bother firing; the Ghosts were moving around enough so that even if he managed to hit one, it would be a glancing shot at best. No, he left the task of dealing with the vehicles to the rocket jockeys and M247-H .50 caliber machine guns along the line.

Two Ghosts went up in flames as they passed over land mines, but the remainder continued to dance back and forth, their plasma cannons felling several troopers along the line as Covenant infantry could be heard coming up behind.

"Fire!" Locke yelled.

All along the line, M247-H machine guns opened up with their deep base tremolo, the massive rounds smashing through the armored plating of the Ghosts or deflecting off at insane angles. Several Ghosts came apart in that first salvo, and those that weren't were quickly targeted by M41 Jackhammer 102mm rockets, the homing missiles locking on to and destroying the craft in instants.

Next came the Covenant infantry, Grunts going first to soak up ammunition and clear paths through the minefields while Jackals and Elites followed up behind, with Spectre troop transports in support. Faced with an enemy they could now see, the Army troopers opened fire, assault rifles, DMRs, carbines, and sniper rifles coming together in a beautiful cacophony that wiped out much of the first line of the Covenant assault force.

They charged forward in earnest, now, rounds sparkling on the personal shields of Elites or deflecting off the kinetic shields of the Jackals. Occasionally, one alien would step on a land mine and would vanish in an explosion and a shower of colored blood. The Covenant forces likewise began to fire, bolts of plasma burning through armor like paper as troopers began to fall along the line.

Scott joined in, his MA37 coughing quick bursts. After so many years fighting, he had the ways to take down each member of the typical Covenant assault forces down to a formula. For Grunts, all it usually took was quick stroke of the trigger. Three or four clean upper-torso to headshots, and they would almost always be down for the count. For Jackals, it was a bit trickier. Grenades were useful for dislodging those annoying shields of theirs, but once those were out of play, they were physically as weak as Grunts.

Elites…Elites were tricky. If you were feeling particularly brave, or lucky, you could try taking one down with repeated bursts from an assault rifle, but with the way they jumped around and those recharging personal shields, that was far from a sure bet. The best way to do it was to coordinate fire with several other troopers; even an Elite could only last so long against the combined firepower of three or more rifles.

So for now, Scott focused mainly on the Grunts and Jackals, letting the Mike-Two-Four-Seven-Hotels and the sniper teams in back focus on the Elites and the rocket jockeys and grenadiers to duel with the Spectres. He pulsed his finger on the trigger, putting down a Grunt or Jackal with each burst, emptied his magazine, and reloaded. All mechanical, all automatic, all instinctive.

It occurred to Scott as he continued to fire, ducking occasionally to avoid bolts of plasma or explosive needles, that this attack was suspiciously weak for the Covenant. While the troopers were taking casualties, they were holding the line fairly easily, and the aliens seemed in no mood to try and push as far as they could. They were hanging back more, exchanging fire with the troopers instead of making their infamous suicidal charges.

Scott didn't know what that was all about, but he didn't really mind, he figured as he caught a Jackal in his crosshairs and fired, dropping the avian creature with a quick burst.

After a few minutes, the UNSC artillery joined in, dropping a rain of 155mm shells on the rear of the alien formation. Spectres came apart under the sudden firepower, and the Covenant formation disintegrated. After that, it was easy work to pick off the few foolish Elites that chose to remain behind as the other Covenant forces retreated.

In a little while, it was all over, silence falling once again over the no-man's-land, now newly littered with bodies. The UNSC troopers sat down in relief, conversing in low undertones while medics carried away the wounded to aid stations. Scott looked to the side. The trooper he had been standing next to had taken a pair of plasma bolts to the chest, his upper body carbonized. Scott fought the urge to throw up.

Regrouping with Dom and Bruzscinski, Scott made his way back down the line towards their foxhole. As he approached it, he noticed the familiar forms of Mueller, Eisen, and Kold, milling together amongst the masses of olive-drab clad troopers.

Mueller turned around. "There you are," he sighed. "Don't you ever do that again."

Scott frowned. "What?"

Mueller snarled. "Run off without telling me. Our squad was down to half-strength and I had no idea where you were, what with the CNM network being so clogged up. You run off like that again and I might just put a bullet in the back of your head myself."

Scott had worked with Mueller long enough to know the man wasn't serious, was only venting, so he merely nodded dutifully and gave the obligatory "Yes, sergeant." Mueller seemed satisfied with that, and he went off to go talk to one of the staff sergeants, ostensibly about the possibility of acquiring some new weaponry for the squad. Scott himself was running low on grenades, so he wouldn't mind a resupply.

Kold, meanwhile, was staring out at the no-man's-land. "This is too weird, man," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Scott asked.

Kold gestured with his assault rifle out to the mangled alien corpses strewn across the no-man's-land, and in particular to one Grunt that had managed to make it all the way up to the electric-barbed wire fence. Unknowing of such human technology, it had tried to leap over, got caught, and died a very painful death. Or, at least, so Scott assumed, judging by the fact that the corpse was still twitching and smoking. A few troopers had begun to use it as target practice.

"Covies attacking and then just runnin' away," he said. "That's not like them, man. It's not right."

"That was just a skirmish force," Bruzscinski spoke up. "They're testing our defenses, seeing what our strength is like. The real attack'll come tomorrow."

"Or tonight," Scott muttered under his breath.

The conversation died after that, and Scott made his way back to his foxhole, dropping into it with a sigh as his combat boots squelched into the puddle of muddy water that had collected in the bottom, near the grenade stump. Scott noticed the puddle had already begun to ice over on the edges; it must be getting close to evening.

It did seem a little colder, Scott thought, peering up at the sun as he wrapped his poncho around himself, shivering. He activated the thermal units in his armor, and that helped somewhat to abate the cold as Dom dropped in next to him.

"Now what?" Dom asked.

Scott shrugged. "Maybe you'd settle for a game of Texas Hold 'em?


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter VI

**A/N: I probably won't be able to effectively work this out until June or so when school is finally out, but if anyone would be willing to beta for this and/or some of my other stories, please let me know in a PM or review. **

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

Babd Catha Ice Shelf, Eposz

0104 hours, August 8th, 2552 (UNSC military calendar)

Scott awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming.

It was an eerie sound, a sudden wail that was so raw and pained it sounded animalistic, yet still retained a base human emotion that sent chills down his spine. Carried by the cold, bitter wind, the cry swept across the Babd Catha Ice Shelf, echoing off distant mountainsides and shattering the silence of night as all along the UNSC lines, agonized cries began to pierce the dark.

"What the hell?" Scott rolled to his feet in the foxhole, his boots splashing through the semi-frozen puddle at the bottom as he frantically groped in the dark for his assault rifle. Beside him, Dom was already bolt upright, clawing his way up out of the hole to see what was going on.

Scott felt a thrill of relief as his fingers closed around the familiar contours of his MA37. He hefted the weapon, thumbing off the safety and scrambling out of the foxhole into the trenches of what many troopers were now jokingly referring to as the Siegfried Line. He turned on his LLVAS, blinking several times to accustom his eyes to the new light.

As they adjusted and he could now see through the darkness, he immediately wished he had left them off.

Private Alex Kold, who had been awake on the first watch of the night, was _hovering _in midair, his feet dangling and kicking helplessly several feet above the ground as he screamed his throat raw.

It almost looked like he was genuinely levitating.

That is, until Scott noticed the twin prongs of white-hot magnetically-contained plasma protruding from his torso, having pierced clean through two layers of armor, his fatigues, and body from behind.

Scott froze momentarily, his mouth frozen in an expression of disbelief as he watched Kold die before his eyes. As his frantic thrashings grew weaker and weaker, Kold managed to gasp out, "…help…"

Scott grappled for his assault rifle, struggling to bring to bear. As the surrounding troopers finally began to shake out of their shock-induced stupor, Kold was suddenly plucked from the blade by some unseen force, screaming as the white-hot plasma was suddenly withdrawn. Scott brought up his CNM and accessed TEAMBIO; sure enough, in a few seconds, Kold's vitals flatlined as he hit the floor of the trench.

One of the troopers fired a random burst in the direction of the sword, and actually manage to place a few rounds on target. There was a whine and a flash of shields, and then the popping sound of an active camouflage system disengaging, revealing a white-armored and v_ery pissed off _stealth Elite brandishing a plasma sword.

The Elite charged forward, singling out a sergeant as its next target. Dom, in an act of bravery, tried to hurl himself in front of it and block its way. The Elite didn't have time to bring its sword across, so instead, it merely backhanded him, sending the grenadier flying to the ground.

The Elite drove its blade into the chest of the sergeant and whirled around, palming a plasma grenade off of its belt and hurling it at a clump of troopers. They scattered, and the grenade detonated, a flash of blue light illuminating the night.

Suddenly, the deafening report of an M45 Tactical Shotgun rang out. The Elite's shields overloaded and vanished with a pop. The alien roared its fury, raising its blade to the heavens in a gesture of defiance.

A gesture that was mainly lost on Scott, who took the opportunity to put a three-round burst into the Elite's forehead. The alien crumpled, three neat holes urging purple blood from its shattered cranium. Its sword hit the dirt, sputtered and died as the weapon's failsafes detected that it had left the hand of its user.

For a moment, there was silence, profound shock at what had just happened. More screams came from all around, and Scott looked. Everywhere, there were the flashes of energy swords and gunfire. A contingent of the alien stealth Elites must have picked their way across the minefield while the humans slept. How they had gotten past the thermal and proximity sensors, Scott didn't know-probably the same way that the Covenant were always able to blind UNSC sensors for brief periods of time-but all that mattered now was that their line was FUBAR.

However, even Elites could only last so long in the middle of hundreds of Army troopers. And now that their cover had been blown, they were outnumbered and outgunned. They took many down with them, but in the end, it was only a matter of time before the last one fell.

Scott barely had time to recognize the voice of Winters screaming over the CNM to man the line when the attack started.

The Ghosts came out of nowhere, screaming out of the dark like their namesakes, plasma cannons vaporizing their targets as they charged with reckless abandon across the minefield. Some exploded, going up in plumes of blue flame, but the others made it through unscathed, speeding towards the human line.

Still confused and disoriented, the UNSC troopers retaliated, a few of the heavy fifties down the line opening up as the rocket jockeys struggled to get to their posts. The Ghosts' advance was stalled temporarily.

Scott felt his heart sink as his LLVAS highlighted the outlines of Covenant Wraith tanks advancing towards the line. They seemed to materialize out of the dark and fog, their beetlelike hulls bristling with weapons as they floated towards the human line.

By now, the humans had gotten organized enough to at least attempt a cohesive defense. 102mm rockets began to streak towards the advancing Covenant armor, scoring occasional hits that caused alien vehicles to explode in blue fire, but the rockets were too few to stem the advancing tide.

As one, the Wraiths fired, the light of their plasma mortar shells turning night into hellish day as they descended in a lazy arc towards the human positions.

Scott was already moving, his body conditioned by years of warfare as to what to do when Wraiths showed up. He dove back into his foxhole, cursing as he slipped and twisted his ankle in the grenade stump, a deeper hole dug into the dirt at the bottom where a grenade could be shoved if it landed in the foxhole, hitting the semi-frozen dirt as the mortars detonated.

The successive explosions were deafening, the earth shaking as the destructive power of the plasma was unleashed. Troopers vanished in flashes of light, their screams cut short and their twisted shadows highlighted for a split-second before any trace that they had ever existed vanished. Machine guns were melted, their metal bodies running to the ground in rivers of liquid steal. Steam rose from the evaporated water and snow, adding a ghostly mist to the already hellish scene.

The bombardment continued mercilessly, each volley taking more lives. The troopers fought back as best they could under such withering firepower, firing rockets and throwing grenades as the UNSC artillery behind opened up in response. Wraiths were destroyed, Ghosts shattered, but the assault continued unabated.

Soon, Covenant infantry began to charge across the no-man's-land as well, firing their weapons at the human line. However, the UNSC troopers still held the trenches, and were able to cut down many of the alien foot soldiers as they charged across the field. The muzzle flashes of human rifles combined with the ghostly lights of Covenant plasma weapons to illuminate the night in sporadic intervals. Artillery shells would land, momentarily blinding in their light, while green and blue plasma and the orange and pink tracers of both sides' projectile ammunition slashed back and forth between the two sides. The air stank of ozone and cordite, mixed in with the smell of burning lichens and dried blood.

Scott finally regained some of his courage, daring to peek over the tip of his foxhole as plasma mortar shells fell all around. He brought up his assault rifle, lining up his crosshairs on his HUD and stroking the trigger in rapid bursts, felling a line of Grunts and wounding a Jackal, forcing it to drop back and reposition its shield while he reloaded.

For a few desperate minutes, the fight see-sawed back and forth. Scott dropped a carbine-wielding Jackal with a burst of 7.62mm rounds, and for a moment he entertained the notion that they might actually be able to hold this line. This was likely the full force of the Covenant assault; if they could withstand this, they might be able to hold back the alien forces from northern Eposz, and perhaps turn the tide of the battle of Reach towards the UNSC's favor.

That, as it always did, turned out to be a foolish hope.

The battle shifted immediately in the Covenant's favor as squadrons of Banshee attack craft came screaming in low over the battlefield, having pinpointed the location of the UNSC artillery locations in the back of the line. Human computer-controlled anti-aircraft cannons opened up as the Banshees streaked overhead, taking out several of the flying attack craft in purple-white explosions that smeared across the night sky and sent debris raining down, but the damage had already been done. Even as the waves of Banshees were blown out of the sky by 20mm cannon fire, they released dozens of radioactive fuel rod projectiles. The UNSC artillery, parked behind earthen fortifications, was helpless before the aerial assault. Massive explosions came from the rear of the line as many of the 155mm howitzers that had been the only thing stemming the alien tide vanished in orange explosions.

To their credit, the human forces actually managed to hold the line for a few more minutes after their artillery support had been effectively taken out of play, desperately throwing everything they had at the oncoming flood of alien armor and personnel. But it was like throwing sponges at a bursting dam, and it didn't take long before the inevitable breakthrough occurred.

It happened farther down the line, near the positions of Alpha Company, but the effect was the same. A force of Wraiths managed to blow through the human line, rolling over the trenches and foxholes like an incoming wave. Once the line's integrity was breached, the Covenant forces homed in on the weakness and arrowed through, driving a wedge deep into the UNSC defenses.

That was it. Once the line was broken, the human forces would have to pull back and reestablish another defensive location. Trying to retake the trenches after they were infested with Covenant troops would only result in a staggering casualty rate.

And so, Scott had already scrambled back out of his foxhole and reunited with Mueller and Eisen (Dom and Bruzscinksi, strangely, were nowhere to be found, and Scott felt a sinking feeling in his stomach) by the time Winters' frantic voice broke over the CNM issuing the "Bloody Arrow" code.

Bloody Arrow was the UNSC cross-branch distress call, used only in cases of an absolute route of friendly forces. Scott froze, straining to hear through the screams and explosions, and managed to catch Winters yelling out "Omega Order!"

Omega was the abort code; the phrase that meant you needed to break and run, to get back to the fallback point by any means possible.

In this case, the fallback point was ONI Sword Base; some twenty miles due southwest from their location.

The following night retreat Scott would remember as one of the most harrowing of his life. Unable to locate Dom, Mueller led Scott and Eisen at a full-on sprint away from the doomed line as the UNSC troopers fell back. They zigzagged back and forth and generally did everything they could to throw off the aim of the Covenant soldiers who were closing in fast behind.

Scott knew where all the soldiers were heading; towards the motor pool at the rear of the line, where row upon row of Warthogs, Badgers, and other vehicles were parked. Scott ran like he had never ran before, stopping occasionally to spin around and fire a suppressing burst at the alien troopers that were pouring through the breach. The UNSC fortifications flashed past in the night as he sprinted; rows of trenches and foxholes, underground shelters and hospitals so painstakingly dug, were now being abandoned in the blink of an eye. Soldiers were throwing away weapons, armor, helmets, canteens; discarding anything that would slow them down in their mad dash for survival. Many of them didn't get the chance to regret that decision, cut down by plasma beams as they ran.

A plasma mortar from a Wraith landed fifty yards in front of him, destroying a communications bunker. The sudden flash of light while he had his LLVAS on disoriented him, and he tripped, falling to the ground.

"No," Scott whispered, desperately scrabbling to regain his feet. There was no way he was going to die like this, lying in the dirt. "No, no, no!" he cried, yet his body seemed too exhausted, too spent from its run to keep going. His muscles trembled and burned with fatigue as he crawled forwards.

He recognized the symptoms of shellshock-had gotten it once before during a nasty friendly-fire incident in 2548 on New Symphony-but didn't realize you could get it from plasma too.

A strange peace fell over him as he ceased crawling, rolling over on his back to face the sky. It wasn't worth resisting any more, he figured. He had fought long enough, right? Nearly a decade spent fighting the Covenant. He had paid his debt to humanity many times over.

It was almost beautiful, he thought as he lay there. Plasma and tracers streaked overhead, like colorful brushstrokes across the black canvas of the night sky. The whine of Covenant plasma, the crackle of human weaponry, the explosions of shells and plasma mortars, it all combined to form a sort of music. A concerto of destruction, if you will. A symphony of the battlefield, a movement of death.

A smile came onto his face. He was so tired; it would be so easy to just lay down here and rest…

Something suddenly obscured his vision, and he looked up to see the massive form of a blue-armored Elite stalk over to him. A thrill of fear went through him, and he tried to reach for his assault rifle, but the alien merely pressed a hoof down onto his hand, stopping any such attempts at resistance. It looked at him for a moment, gave a huff of disgust, and raised its hoof to stomp on his face.

_So this is how it ends…._

"Cover me!" he heard someone yell, a voice he recognized as Mueller. To his shock, the sergeant came sprinting back for him, firing his assault rifle wildly at the Elite. Distracted by the live prey, the Elite swung its weapon towards Mueller, firing a rapid burst of plasma charges that the sergeant promptly ducked. Scott watched, amazed, as the sergeant plowed into the Elite in a gravball-style tackle, wrapping his arms around the alien's waist.

Obviously the Elite hadn't expected that, or at least so Scott judged by its "Wort?" of surprise, and the fact that it actually fell backwards. Normally, an Elite would manhandle any human in hand-to-hand, but when taken by surprise, a two-hundred-twenty-pound Army sergeant in full strength-enhancing armor was more than capable of taking one down with a well-placed tackle.

Of course, that didn't necessarily carry over into the actual melee fight. The Elite must have been so stunned that it went into shock for a moment, because Mueller was actually able to get in a couple of vicious punches that left some nasty bruises along the Elite's jawline before the alien retaliated.

Shrugging away the pain of the blows, the Elite shoved Mueller off, reaching up and grabbing the sergeant by the throat. Scott blinked in surprise as the alien bodily _lifted _the struggling man up a good half-meter off the ground, bringing him to eye level and snarling something Scott's CNM couldn't translate, but he guessed it was some kind of insult.

"Little help?" Mueller managed to gasp out as he madly tried to keep the Elite from choking him.

Scott suddenly saw his assault rifle lying on the ground a few feet away, where it had fallen when the Elite had stopped him. A sudden burst of energy reinvigorated him, and he lunged for the weapon, sitting upright and blasting half a magazine at the alien's back.

The Elite's shields flashed as it whirled around, dropping Mueller in the process. Scott was starting to regret his decision as the alien raised its plasma rifle when it happened.

_Pow! Pow! Pow! _The three shots rang out in rapid succession, and Scott smiled as he recognized the semi-automatic tune of an M392 DMR. Eisen had entered the fray.

The Elite's shields, already weakened by Mueller's and Scott's assaults, went down after the first two shots, overloading with a pop. The third bullet drilled into the back of the cranium, exiting through a neat hole in the forehead with a spray of purple blood and brain. The Elite's lifeless corpse pitched forwards…

…and fell directly on Scott's lap.

Scott swore, gasping as 720-plus pounds of alien flesh and armor fell on top of him. He groaned, attempting to push it off of him. "Uh…guys?" he grunted as he shoved at the corpse.

Mueller and Eisen showed up soon enough, dragging the Elite's corpse off of him. As Scott got to his feet, wiping purple blood off his fatigues, Mueller clapped the side of his head. "You with me?" he asked.

"Yeah," Scott said, reloading his rifle and looking around. The retreat had since deteriorated into a pell-mell panic. As he watched, a trooper from Bravo Company turned around, firing wildly from his shotgun before being cut down by plasma bolts.

"Yeah, let's go," he said.

The three remaining troopers in 4th squad ran then, ran like maniacs all the way back to the motorpool. They pounded into the vehicle storage bunker, running to the first vehicle they found; an M12 Warthog Fast Attack Vehicle, complete with a 12.7x99mm M41 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun mounted on a swivel in back.

"Scott," Mueller ordered, as he climbed into the driver's seat and Eisen into the passenger's. "Get on the gun."

"Yes, _sir,_" Scott said enthusiastically. He clambered up onto the back of the Warthog, stepping into the turret position and flipping the switch to arm the LAAG. He brought up the TACMAP on his CNM, and saw that Sword Base had been highlighted as the fallback point. All UNSC forces affected by the Bloody Arrow code would be heading there.

Mueller wasted no time pulling out of the motorpool as Covenant forces closed in, joining the throng of human vehicles speeding southwest along the rough road to Sword Base.

"Keep your eyes peeled," Mueller called back. "You're our only defense here."

"Roger," Scott acknowledged, swiveling the turret back and forth, scanning the dark night skies for any sign of the enemy. To the northeast, where the battle still raged between the UNSC forces still able to hold their ground and the Covenant invaders, flashes of light lit up the horizon, while huge booms and explosions were audible even from this far away.

As they traveled farther down the road, they began to link up with even more numbers of fleeing troops, forming an impromptu convoy of Warthogs, Badgers, Scorpions, Mongooses, and pretty much any other mode of wheeled transportation, all heading towards their salvation at Sword Base. There were even some troopers limping along the side of the road, hitching rides on troop transport Warthogs and Badgers.

However, the retreat was not completely unorganized; the men and women of the 212th regiment were battle-hardened and experienced. As soon as they were able to regroup, they formed up in strategic convoys, with wedges of Warthogs leading and following while Scorpions and Badgers occupied the middle.

It didn't take the Covenant air forces long to home in on the fleeing humans. Scott recognized the eerie wails of the Banshees before they appeared, diving out of the storm clouds and spitting plasma into the line of human vehicles.

"Fire, fire, fire!" Mueller yelled, spinning the wheel back and forth, causing the Warthog to fishtail madly down the road. Plasma bolts burned into the ground near it, scorching the armor and melting some rubber off the tires.

Scott needed no further encouragement. He spun around in the turret, ducking down behind the blast shield as he jammed his fingers down on the trigger buttons. The LAAG roared to life as its barrels spooled up, spinning rapidly.

Tracers split the sky, 12.7x99mm rounds streaking up. Scott adjusted his aim, firing in short bursts and yelling like a madman as he tracked one of the Banshees. Some of the massive rounds hit their target, sparking off the armored canards of the flying craft, denting the canopy and causing smoke to billow out of it. The pilot pulled up from its dive, but not before Scott managed to fire another burst and rip off its wing. Trailing blue flame from its crippled wing, the Banshee boosted away from the fight.

Ah, well. There were more than enough Banshees to go around anyways.

A Warthog up ahead took a direct hit from a series of plasma bolts, slagging the gun and melting the gunner. A Scorpion turned and blasted one of the fliers out of the sky with a well-timed canister shell, while a quartet of Badgers coordinated their 20mm DU cannons to slap Banshee after Banshee out of the sky.

Scott teamed up with another Warthog gunner, firing continuously on a Banshee that streaked by. The massive .50 caliber shells tore through the flier's thin armor, ripping the craft apart and sending debris raining down. Scott waited for a moment to let the barrels cool down before selecting another target and firing, struggling to hold on as Mueller spun the wheel like a madman, desperately avoiding the blue plasma bolts and the green fuel-rod bombs the Banshees tended to drop.

The Banshees were certainly dangerous, but nothing the convoy wasn't capable of handling. With the combined firepower of LAAGs, Gauss cannons, rockets, and Scorpion and Badger cannons, the impromptu column of vehicles was able to fend off the aerial attackers while suffering relatively little losses. Accordingly, the Covenant decided to call in the heavy artillery.

Scott's blood froze as he heard the buzzing drone begin to fill the skies, an audible thrum that seemed to stir the very air. Four Phantoms dropped from the clouds and slotted into pursuit position behind the convoy, the alien dropships' purple hulls blending into the night sky, only their running lights visible. At the bow of each of the Phantoms, a single searchlight sprang to life, flashing over the road as they sought out the human vehicles.

Scott squinted as one of the searchlights swept over him, nearly blinding him with his LLVAS on. The light swept past for a moment before snapping back, training on the Warthog as the large plasma turret mounted underneath the Phantom's bulbous nose began to crackle and glow, signifying an imminent discharge.

"Hold on to your helmets!" Mueller yelled as the Phantom fired, sending a vibrant plasma bolt streaking towards them. The Warthog swerved to the left, and the plasma bolt impacted just behind it, blowing a crater in the road and lifting the rear end of the FAV up into the air. Scott braced against the turret as the back of the M12 smashed back to earth, the suspension crunching together just like his teeth.

Swearing, Scott rotated the turret to face the quartet of pursuing Phantoms, all of whom were now firing with wild abandon, the red-hot beams of plasma searing the night sky and, more often than not, finding their targets, explosions smearing the night in sudden vibrant splashes of yellow and orange.

Scott pressed down on the firing studs, the M41 roaring to life. 12.7mm rounds impacted on the armor of the lead Phantom, sparking off, denting the purple hull, but causing little damage. Taking down a Phantom with an M41 LAAG would be quite a feat, unless he somehow managed to hit a vulnerable spot. From his training and from field experience, Scott knew that the Phantom's weakest points in the armor were the two engine bulbs on either side of the bulky body-conveniently marked by two glowing circles-and the gun turret itself.

Scott doubted his abilities to hit the engine bulbs while the Phantom and the Warthog were both moving (he suddenly found himself having a lot more respect for Warthog gunners) so he decided to focus his fire instead on the plasma turret that hung underneath the nose, swiveling around and spitting red bolts of energy at the human vehicles. He opened up, his aim dancing all over the place as the Warthog swerved. Bullets sparked off the turret, and it appeared he hit something vital, because there was a sudden small explosion and a burst of multicolored steam came rushing out the side of the turret.

Another Warthog gunner took advantage of the Phantom's sudden disarmament, putting a well-aimed hypersonic Gauss projectile into one of the engine bulbs. A huge blue-white explosion marred the night sky, and when Scott looked back, a huge chunk of the Phantom had literally been blown off. The Phantom, now with only one engine and about three-quarters of the body left, began to dip towards the ground, crashing into a large formation of rocks.

Apparently, the loss of one of their comrades didn't seem to go over too well. Scott yelped in surprise as a plasma bolt struck just under the Warthog, blowing off a good portion of the rear fender. He was about to return fire when one of the Badgers opened up with its 20mm cannon, the DU self-sharpening projectiles punching holes in the armor. Distracted by more dangerous prey, the Phantom rotated its turret.

The Phantom was about a half-second away from turning that APC into a bad case of melted metal when one of the few Scorpion tanks in the convoy took matters into its own hands. Its turret rotated around, the discharge of the barrel momentarily turning night into day. Scott's eyes were barely able to follow the streak of the armor-piercing round as it impacted on the Phantom's nose and punched a hole straight through, exiting through the engines in a spray of molten metal and blue plasma. The Phantom's running lights flickered briefly before going out, and the massive craft plunged from the sky, hitting the earth and skidding up a massive furrow in the ground.

Scott would have breathed a sigh of relief, but they were far from out of the woods yet (an interesting turn of phrase, since now that they were getting farther away from the ice shelf, there were actually some trees beginning to appear amidst the rocky knolls). The other two Phantoms dropped back a little, afraid or unwilling to suffer the same fate as their comrades. They seemed content to sit back about half klick and lob plasma bolts at the convoy, dodging missiles and cannonfire.

Scott swore as another plasma bolt streaked past them, hitting a nearby rocket Warthog. The FAV burst into flames, careening off the side of the road. He knew they had to be getting close to Sword Base; the sun was beginning to rise, allowing him to deactivate his LLVAS. Scott heard someone, probably Locke, screaming over the CNM for air support. His CNM's TACMAP said that they were less than eight miles away now; surely those stationed at Sword could share some assets from their airfield.

Scott's prayers were answered a minute later, as the clipped tone of the Sword Base local Air Defense Coordinator broke across the CNM. "We have Devil One-One, flight of two F-115s, over."

"We'll take 'em," Locke responded, out of breath.

"Air support inbound," the ADC responded.

The next thirty seconds until Devil One-One arrived seemed an eternity, but they finally did. Each fighter spent two and a half seconds on their guns, two quick bursts of 35mm rounds tearing through the armor of the first Phantom and causing it to detonate in a brilliant midair explosion that sent debris flying everywhere. Moving at speeds almost impossible to follow, the two jets streaked away into the distance, visible as only a metallic sheen before the thrust-vector forward-swept wing aircraft executed one of those viciously tight banks they were known for, coming around for another pass at the surviving Phantom.

The last alien dropship had wised up, knowing it couldn't match the human jets in speed or maneuverability, and had taken shelter behind a large rock column, plasma cannon spitting bolts into the air.

The plasma bolts were too slow to even come near the Kestrels, however, and the F-115s also had indirect fire weapons at their disposal. The Kestrels' QXE-9 computer targeting systems identified and painted the Phantom's target silhouette even behind the rock column, and each fighter pilot received the positive lock-on tone.

Each Kestrel deployed a single AIM-99 Rapier missile, the anti-air rockets streaking away and up into the air as they sought out the Phantom. Once the onboard computers acquired it and identified it as their target, they activated the terminal phase of their flight, climbing to gain altitude and then coming screaming down from above.

To the Phantom pilot's credit, he actually managed to dodge the first missile in a rather clever ploy, maneuvering neatly around the rock column to place it in the way of the incoming rocket. The AIM-99 detonated against the side of the spire, sending bits of rock showering down.

The other Rapier, however, flew true, plunging down at incredible speed and impacting on the top of the Phantom's hull. The warhead detonated, sending the Phantom into a crippling death-spin down, down to the rock-strewn hills below, where it hit and exploded.

"Yee-ha!" one of the troopers yelled, and even Scott couldn't help but smile. Sword Base was getting closer now, looming in the distance, a large building built against a seaside cliff. Near there was an airfield, anti-aircraft defenses, defensive outposts, and other beckoning fortifications.

The convoy pulled onto the main road leading to the base, but they still had to cross a large bridge that spanned a raging river that fed into the ocean Sword Base was built near.

_Almost there, _Scott thought, but even as he did so, a pursuing force of Covenant Ghosts appeared behind them, speeding down the road, backed up by Revenants and Spectres.

Scott spun the turret around, opening up on the first Spectre he saw. The 12.7x99mm rounds chewed through the hovercraft's thin armor and hit something vital, the Spectre vanishing in a purple-white fireball.

The Covenant vehicles opened up as well, plasma bolts and mortars smashing into the rear of the convoy. Mueller floored the accelerator as the bridge came up ahead, the safety of Sword Base looming beyond.

But the Covenant were closing in, their plasma mauling the rear forces of the convoy. If they didn't get some support soon-

As if on cue, three UH-144 Falcon turboprop ground support dropships came speeding over the bridge, en route from Sword Base. Scott grinned. While the D-77 TCI Pelican model of dropships were the most widely known and recognized of the UNSC air support line, the UH-144 was without a doubt very effective at the support of troops on the ground, so much so that many soldiers compared the thrum of a Falcon's propellers approaching the fray as the closest earthly thing to the harps of heaven.

These Falcons proved their usefulness, hovering back and forth to avoid the plasma bolts and mortars of the suddenly-outgunned Covenant picket forces while opening up with their own nose-mounted M638 autocannons and the door gunners with their M247-H machine guns. High-caliber supersonic rounds shredded the front lines of the Covenant assault force. The remaining alien vehicles milled about, unwilling to retreat but perhaps unwilling to attack in the face of such firepower, and the Falcons capitalized on that indecision. These models had been equipped with ANVIL-II AGM missile pods, and they fired, high-explosive rockets streaking into the Covenant vehicles and destroying them in dozens of multicolored explosions.

The Covenant assault force slaughtered, Scott went limp with relief, slumping against the turret as Mueller and the rest of the convoy drove over the bridge, entering the terrain around the base.

Sword Base, itself, however, having recently survived a Covenant siege, was not in the best of condition. The troopers that walked about looked haggard and worn, and debris lay everywhere. There was even a large hole blown in the roof of the main ONI complex where the Covenant corvette had made its assault, like a gaping scar in the otherwise pristine walls.

The convoy slowed to a halt and separated. Mueller drove into an underground vehicle parking garage, the Warthog coming to a halt in one of the parking spots. Scott slowly slid down the side of the FAV, standing on trembling legs.

"Whoo-ee," said a voice, and Scott looked up to see a fresh-faced young Army trooper trotting over towards them, assault rifle in hand. The trooper looked over the many scars and dents in the side of the M12. "Looks like you boys had some fun."

Scott didn't even bother answering. "What's your unit, boy?" Mueller asked, coming over to stand beside them.

The trooper abruptly came to attention, recognizing Mueller's rank. "Private Michael Tanner, sir," he said. "B Company, 408th Regiment, 3rd AEU."

Mueller nodded. "You the boys that got mauled here a few days ago?"

That seemed to take much of the wind out of Michael's sails. "Yes, sir," he said dejectedly. "We were almost forced to retreat, but a team of Spartans came through!" Michael seemed to brighten. "Oh, you should have seen it! They tore through the Covenant like nothing else. If it weren't for them, we would have-"

Scott tuned the young trooper out, focusing instead on the many bruises and wounds he had accrued during his flight. Nothing really worthy of seeing a corpsman, but enough to make him wish for a long hot show-well, who was he kidding-a shower of any temperature, and some rest.

Scott turned his head. More and more vehicles were pulling into the underground garage now, and he saw Major Dearborn and Locke conversing with a colonel.

A medical troop transport Warthog pulled into the garage, and several soldiers were carrying wounded troopers out on stretchers.

Scott blinked as he saw that one of the troopers holding the stretchers was none other than Corporal Bruzscinski. Scott sprinted over, coming to a stop next to the corporal. "You made it!" he said excitedly. He frowned, looking around, his gut sinking. "Did Dom…?"

Bruzscinski merely pointed to the back of the Warthog, and Scott looked over to see Dom laying on one of the stretchers. Feeling weak in his knees, he hobbled over to where the grenadier lay. Over his right side, his fatigues were peeled back, exposing a nasty plasma scar, the skin blackened and cauterized.

"Dom?" Scott asked. "Dom? Can you hear me?"

"He's unconscious," one of the medics carrying the stretcher grunted. "About bloody time, too. The man took a plasma bolt to the side and insisted on keeping fighting. We had to pin him down and inject a couple ounces of morphine to knock him out."

"Is he gonna be alright?" Scott asked anxiously.

The medic snorted. "Provided we can keep him in bed for a few days? Yeah. He should patch up find. It was a glancing hit, and his armor absorbed the most of it."

Scott sighed with relief, letting the corpsmen take Dom away to the medical ward.

"Scotty!" called a voice. Scott turned around to see Eisen calling his name. The sharpshooter gestured with his DMR, beckoning him over. "There's food in the mess."

Scott smiled. Nothing said "narrowly surviving a middle-of-the-night retreat" like a subsequent meal of tasteless coffee and lukewarm scrambled eggs. "I'd be delighted."

**A/N: Reviews make me happy soul.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter VII

**A/N: In honor of the chapter bearing Bungie's favorite number, I feel once again the need to proclaim that Bungie (well, actually, I think 343 owns it now) owns Halo, and kudos to them for making such a great game.**

Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

ONI Sword Base, Sector 18-G

Near Babd Catha Ice Shelf, Eposz

August 9th, 2552, 0523 hours (UNSC military calendar)

"Seriously? Is there no one Command can stick us that isn't at the ass end of nowhere?"

The speaker was Bruszcinski, his tone annoyed as he spat out the words between mouthfuls of the questionable-looking mush that the cooks at Sword Base insisted were hashbrowns.

"I mean, Mondell Com Station?" Bruszcinski continued. "Really? That place is practically a dump."

"Ah, give it a rest," Mueller snapped back. "Nothing we can do'll change it; might as well accept the fact and move on."

Bruszcinski grumbled something under his breath, but fell silent before shoveling another forkful of the semi-edible paste into his mouth.

"Besides," Mueller continued. "We wouldn't want a spook to overhear us complaining about their charming accommodations, would we?"

Scott nearly blew milk out of his nose at that remark, doubling over across the table and almost getting a still-hot pancake down his shirt. Immediately, he sat upright, hurriedly using his napkin to wipe off his mouth before clearing his throat and busying himself with some piece of food on his plate that could tentatively be identified as a sausage. As he did so, he flicked his eyes up to see if the newest member of their squad had seen his fit.

She had. Private Catherine Burke, the replacement for the late Private Kold, was pretending to drink her water, but Scott could see the edges of her mouth turned up in a smile, and her brown eyes laughed good-naturedly at him from across the table. Scott's tongue seemed to tie in knots, and he stammered an apology under his breath as his cheeks flamed crimson, returning to his meal and paying meticulous attention to his methodical dissection of the sausage.

Scott Anderson had been born on the mid-rim colony of Carpitua in 2528, by which time the war was already well underway. He had joined the Army straight out of high school, and for the last six years he had fought and slogged his way through the mud and rain, snow and sands of former colonies. The horrors he had witnessed in his time with the 212th had forced him to grow up much faster than a young man of twenty-four ought to have, and he had never had a normal adolescent experience. He had never gone to college, never bought a home…and never dated.

Well, there had been one girl back in his junior year of high school, he remembered, but that hadn't really been very serious to start off with. The point was; Scott had next to no experience with affairs of the heart. Which made the situation he was in very tricky.

He had known Private Burke for approximately thirty-six hours. And in that time, he found that he could scarcely think of anything else.

Scott was by no means a romantic. He had always found the idea of "love at first sight" to be a little laughable. Perhaps it was his instincts and hormones coming back after years of being ignored, but for some reason, whenever his thoughts turned to Catherine, his stomach did a little flip.

There was no denying that she was attractive; with her brunette locks and slim figure, Catherine seemed quite out of place among the lines of gruff, battered Army troopers that filled Sword Base's cafeteria. Sure, there were plenty of women in the military-Scott had worked with many of them in the past, and had prided himself on the fact that he kept the relationships strictly professional-but something seemed different about her, and it put him on edge.

Scott shook his head, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. The rest of the squad was conversing in mute undertones, their voices adding to the dull roar of conversation that filled the cafeteria. With the survivors of the 212th and some members of the 3rd AEU still hanging around, Sword Base was stretched to capacity, so much so that its cafeteria had to serve breakfast in shifts in order to get everyone through.

Of course, the 212th was far from full strength, Scott thought bitterly as he choked down another mouthful of the pseudo-hashbrowns. Even with replacements, throughout the engagements in Szófia and the Siegfried Line, each company in the 212th had lost at least a third of their strength. The holes in their formation were all too common and all too grieving, especially considering the position the 9th AEU-the principle UNSC defensive force in northern Eposz-was currently in.

The attack that had broken the 212th's line appeared to have been an attempt by the Covenant to drive through the Siegfried Line and towards the more urban, settled areas of Eposz. The push had succeeded in breaking the original line, but due to the reserve forces and the application of copious, almost ridiculous, amounts of carpet-bombing by the UNSC Air Force, the alien advance had been stalled. The other 9th regiments near the breach-the 188th and 434th-had curled back to form a bulge in the line, a salient that the alien forces were pressing into.

It was a tenuous position, but it appeared to be holding for now. Nonetheless, HIGHCOM had logically determined that if the Covenant broke through, their first target on their rampage of destruction south would be Sword Base. In preparation for that contingency, the local defense coordinators had decided to string a line of picket forces about ten miles out from the base. It had been settled upon that Charlie and Delta Companies-the two that had suffered the least losses during the retreat from Siegfried-would be deployed to the various outposts, communications relays, and AA stations that were scattered throughout the rocky hills around Sword Base. Specifically, 2nd Platoon, Delta Company, was being airlifted via Pelican to Mondell Com Station, eight miles out from Sword. Scott, Muller, and Eisen had driven past Mondell during their night-long flight from the Siegfried Line, but it had been dark and Scott's attention had been more focused on the dozens of Covenant howling for their blood. He dimly remembered a few isolated structures and a large communications dish, but that was about it.

At any rate, they were due to be leaving soon, if they wanted to stay on schedule and make it to the relay outpost by 0600. Scott saw Mueller begin to get up from the table, and he did the same, leaving a small mound of the so-called hashbrowns on the plate.

Above the underground parking garages and other facilities, Sword Base was essentially constructed in a series of levels that ran parallel to each other, with a large gap in the middle and bridges connecting the two sides of the base. Artfully constructed, but the bridges also had a tactical value; with access between the two sides of the base limited to such chokepoints, it would be relatively easy to hold off a numerically superior force with a few good troops in the right places.

Those chokepoints had obviously seen action already, Scott noted as they began to traverse down to the vehicle garage. In several areas, there was plasma scoring on the walls and floors, and they would occasionally come across a line of bullet holes pockmarked into the white walls. As they crossed one of the bridges, Scott looked down to the main foyer several floors below and saw a large blackened crater in the otherwise immaculate tile floor, likely the result of a small antimatter charge.

The vehicle garage was a hive of activity as the soldiers of Charlie and Delta companies climbed into M831 troop transport Warthogs to take them to their awaiting birds at the Sword Base airfield. Scott hopped up into the troop cage of one of the Warthogs, taking a seat and setting his MA37 next to him. The others climbed in, with the exception of Dom, who was still in the medical bay, likely grumbling to any doctors who would hear him.

A young private had been selected to drive them to the airfield, and he pulled out of the vehicle garage, joining the column of Warthogs heading towards Sword Base's airfield.

It was early morning still, and the air had that same fell chill it always did, but it was not as extreme as it was at the Siegfried Line closer to the Babd Catha Ice Shelf. Scott turned up the thermal units in his ACUs slightly, relishing in the new warmth.

The Warthog pulled towards the airfield, and Scott swept his eyes over the area, taking in the rows of underground hangars for Pelican dropships (marked by the large dome-shaped roofs designed to disperse the damage of an explosion), as well as the rows of F-115s and UH-144s parked alongside the runways and helo pads.

The Warthog column dispersed, pulling into the respective hangars. The two Warthogs carrying 4th and 5th Squads of 2nd Platoon pulled into Hangar B-4, driving through a brief underground passage to where their ride awaited, resting on a landing pad underneath the domed ceiling.

Scott nodded approvingly, taking in the angular lines and olive-green paint job of the Pelican. The D-77 TCI had a spot in every soldier's heart, known for its ability to quickly insert and exfil troops from hot zones.

The huge-ass cannon slung under the nose and the ANVIL-II AGM missile pods on the wings didn't hurt either, Scott thought as the troopers of 4th and 5th squads jogged up into the Pelican's blood tray.

Scott took a seat along the left side of the dropship, wincing as the uncomfortable metal jabbed into his back. For some reason, it appeared that the Army could drum up millions of taxpayer credits in order to pack a Pelican with enhanced electronics, but couldn't find a few extra cents to make the dropships' chairs more comfortable than a fold-out metal table.

Wriggling to a more comfortable position, Scott tuned out the dull murmur of conversation in the troop bay. A crew chief made one of those timeless jokes about fastening your seatbelts and observing the no-smoking light, and then the bay door closed, sealing the troops inside.

A steady thrum ran through the Pelican's hull as the ship's thrust-vector engines came to life, lifting it into the air. The roof covering the hangar retracted, allowing the D-77 to race away into the clear blue skies.

The trip was short, only a few minutes to the communications relay. The Pelican executed a quick turn, descending rapidly and allowing the rear door to open.

Scott glanced out the open troop bay, taking in the small cluster of buildings that was their new home. Mondel Com Station was a collection of drab, grey, low bunkers, nestled up against the edge of a massive ice shelf near the Northern Sea. A large communications dish sat in the center of the station, presumably what they were charged with protecting. Bare stretches of rocky ground surrounded it, interspersed with occasional drifts of snow that were the herald of northern Eposz's rapidly approaching winter.

The Pelican descended to a few feet above the ground. "Alright, boys," Lieutenant Walker said over the CNM. "Welcome to your new home."

He was met with a chorus of decidedly uninspired "yes, sirs," as the troopers piled out of the Pelicans, boots landing solidly on the semi-frozen ground. Behind them, the Pelicans dropped several large compartments that they had been carrying, containing an assortment of static-defense tools such as turrets, electrified concertina wire, and various types of land mines.

Walker was immediately shouting orders. "First Squad, on me! We're setting up the fixed turrets. Second and Third Squads, start stringing the concertina wire around the perimeter. Fourth and Fifth Squads, you're on mine duty."

Scott groaned. Anything would be better than hacking at the frozen ground again, but Mueller, true to form, accessed him on a private COM channel and snapped at him to shut up.

Scott merely nodded and reached around to his back, retrieving his E-tool and preparing for a very miserable next few hours.

000

UNSC _Osprey_ (FFG-465), 12th Fleet

En route Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

August 9th, 2552, 0823 hours (UNSC military calendar)

Naval Flight Officer Sarah Anderson awoke. A white light burned brightly in her blurry vision, so brilliant that it dazzled her vision, which was unaccustomed to such sights after nearly two weeks in cryo sleep. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she half-retched, performing several dry heaves as she choked on the thick slime that formed in her lungs and throat.

Sarah gasped. She had gone through the awakening process of cryo sleep many times, but the phase was always unpleasant. Moving on autopilot, she pushed herself up, peeling her back off of the formfitting gel bed. As wisps of fog flowed out of the cryogenic tube she had spent the past few weeks in, she clumsily climbed out, stumbling to a nearby bench and inhaled her first real deep breath of air in that same amount of time before doubling over, coughing and letting a large amount of fluid flow from her open mouth.

Sarah sat up, licking her lips and shuddering at the disgusting taste of the cryo inhalant formula. Designed to be regurgitated and swallowed to replace nutrients lost in the deep sleep, the formula was vital to the recovery of strength after cryosleep.

That having been said, however, the stuff still tasted like…Sarah couldn't even come up with an appropriate simile. Suffice to say, it was not very palatable.

Sarah lifted her head and looked around. All down the rows of tubes in the cryo chamber of the frigate UNSC _Osprey_, lids were beginning to open, crewmembers stumbling out in her exact same condition. Sarah shivered as the cool air hit her. Due to covered skin reacting very badly to the cryo process, it was an unfortunate necessity to go into cryo-sleep naked, and waking up was like stepping into a very cold shower.

Moving quickly to get the blood flowing, she headed straight for her locker, pressed her thumb to the biometric scanner, and retrieved her flight uniform, slipping it on with the speed that came with years of practice. After that, having regained some of her strength and steadied her shaking limbs, she left the cryo chamber and stepped into the corridors of the frigate, heading to the ready room of the 898th Interceptor Squadron, the Golden Peregrines.

Sarah stepped into the ready room, a small amphitheater where briefings took place. Several of her squadron-mates had beaten her there, and they were lounging around in the chairs, talking quietly.

Sarah smiled as she saw Flight Officer Mitchell Tainer already there. Tainer was her co-pilot and RIO (Radio Intercept Officer).

The two had worked together for several months now, ever since her previous co-pilot had failed to eject in time when their Longsword was tagged by a Covenant Seraph fighter. In that time, she had come to know Tainer as a man with an infallible and sometimes strange sense of humor, which occasionaly manifested itself at inconvenient times. Such as now.

"Took you long enough, Sarah," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "Although I suppose women are slow at getting ready."

Sarah smiled at the well-meaning verbal jab. She looked up at him-Tainer was also quite tall, a few inches under six and a half feet, which was the maximum height limit for the UNSC Naval Starfigher Corps-and responded, "Well, if that's how you feel, the next time our Longsword has a malfunction during startup, I'll let you go and clear the fuel lines yourself."

That drew some laughs from the rest of the pilots, and one of them even slapped Tainer on the back. Tainer merely gave a good-natured smile. "Touché," he admitted, welcoming Sarah back into the group.

The next few minutes were spent in idle conversation as the rest of the squadron members-eight pilots and eight co-pilots-filed in. While the average Longsword had a crew of four, with a navigator and systems expert operating alongside the pilots, specialized interceptor squadrons like the 898th that were attached to specific naval vessels carried only two crew per craft.

Sarah took a seat as they awaited Commander Choi Lang, their squadron leader. She felt a sense of anticipation rise in her. The 12th Fleet had gotten in on the Battle of Morales II, in which the UNSC Navy scored a rare victory over the Covenant onslaught, and it had done wonders for morale, despite the fact that that victory had come at a grievous price; the 12th Fleet had suffered several losses, not the least of which were four fighters from the 898th, dropping their overall strength from twelve to eight.

Despite that, however, she felt slightly giddy. The 12th Fleet had been recalled back to Reach, which meant that the 898th might get a chance at some R&R at the UNSC's stronghold before venturing back to the front. Even more than that, however, Sarah knew that her brother, Scott Anderson, was a member of the 212th Infantry Regiment, 9th Army Expeditionary Unit, which in his last holo-message he had said was being rotated back to Reach. Seeing as they were the only surviving members of their family, a fact that caused a bitter taste to come to her mouth, she figured they may as well try to arrange some time together to catch up.

The speakers suddenly blared, the ship's AI announced over the intercom that they were exiting Slipspace in the Epsilon Eridani System, which was met by a resounding cheer from the frigate's two-hundred-plus crew that reverberated through all the decks.

A few minutes later, the door to the room slid open, and Commander Lang walked in. Everyone automatically stood and saluted, but, strangely, Lang didn't return the salute. Instead, he merely walked like a zombie straight for the stage, his eyes carrying a haunted look.

Sarah frowned, and hesitantly dropped her arm. This wasn't like him at all. She felt a sense of foreboding grip her as he turned around to face them.

His face was stretched tight, and sweat appeared to be beading on his shaved scalp. Sarah's frown deepened, and she felt her unease grow. Commander Lang was a triple-ace, a survivor of nearly four years in the Starfigher Corps in a unit that had at best a thirty-percent survival rate over that amount of time. He had led attacks against Covenant capital ships and faced down swarms of Seraphs. If something could make him anxious, Sarah knew that it would not be good for the rest of them.

Lang opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it just as quickly. Finally, he seemed to gather his wits. "Men," he said. "I, I, um…." He shook his head and muttered something to himself before looking up again and sighing. "I suppose it's just best to say this straight up and get it over with."

A lead ball coalesced and settled in the pit of Sarah's stomach, even as a thrill of ice made its way down her spine, harbingers of some unspeakable doom.

Lang gathered himself once more and took a deep breath. "I have just received word from Captain Oberlander, who himself heard the news from Vice Admiral Dan Whitcomb, that the Covenant have found Reach. WINTER CONTINGENCY is in full effect, and we are to join the UNSC naval assets in-system to prepare to defend against further Covenant attack."

For a full ten seconds, the room was completely silent, the only sound being the hum of the lights and the odd background noises of a starship at work. Sarah was stunned. Reach, it had been said, would never be found. Other than Earth, it was the most secure planet in humanity's empire. The media had played up its role as an impregnable fortress. ONI Section II had issued several declarations that with the new orbital defense grid, Reach would resist any attack.

Reach was the last fallback point for a battered and bruised humanity. It was their last stand, their Alamo, their Verdun, their Stalingrad. If it fell, so would Earth.

Lang continued. "As of now, all passes are cancelled. We are on five-minute alert for the duration of the invasion."

The ready room exploded with noise, voices arguing and shouting at each other as the pilots tried to come to grips with the reality of the situation. Through it all, Sarah sat in her chair, the eye of the hurricane, simply too shocked to do anything.

_Here's to you, Scotty, _she thought. _Hope you're still alive._

000

Epsilon Eridani System, Planet Reach

Mondell Com Station, near Babd Catha Ice Shelf, Eposz

1021 hours, August 9th, 2552 (UNSC military calendar)

The metal edge of Scott's E-tool broke through the hard frozen crust of the rocky soil, driving deep into the ground. Scott grimaced as he worked the shovel deeper, uprooting several of the tough lichens and brown knee-high grass that were the dominant ground plants of this region. Angling the blade, he heaved the collection of soil away and repeated the process, gouging out a deeper hole.

Pausing to catch his breath and wipe a sheen of sweat off of his brow, Scott turned to Private Catherine Burke, standing beside him with an Antilon anti-personnel mine in her hands. "Hand me that Antilon," he gasped.

Obligingly, she did, kneeling down beside him and passing him the explosive ordnance. Handling it gingerly, as he did all equipment that had the potential to blow up in his face, Scott armed the mine, a band of lights around its exterior lighting up with an inappropriately cheerful beep to show that it was ready to detonate at the application of two pounds of pressure across the weight plate on its top. He settled it carefully into the shallow hole and cautiously piled up the loose dirt and rocks on top of it, making it appear as if it had never been there. He then proceeded to mark its location with a beacon on the platoon's TACMAP, to ensure that there would be no friendly casualties.

Bringing his breathing under control, Scott nodded in approval at the now-deadly patch of ground. Any alien that stepped on that would be in for a very nasty surprise, shielding or no.

"Lotus next?" Catherine asked, and Scott thought a moment before answering. "Yeah," he said. "We'll put 'em a couple dozen meters in front of the Antilons; that way, if the infantry screens in front of the tanks, they should both go off at about the same time."

Catherine nodded, her brown locks bobbing with the movement. "Sounds good," she said, and the two Army troopers gingerly picked their way across the newly-mined ground to a new spot, the small hovercart carrying the mines they were deploying floating along behind with its small VTOL engines.

Scott took a look around, taking in the surroundings. While most of the mining of the area around Mondell Com Station had been done by an automated mine-laying drone, that drone had suffered a malfunction halfway through the circuit, and the rest of the work had to be done the old-fashioned way; by hand. Around the perimeter of the base, the soldiers of 4th and 5th squads were hard at work laying the deadly explosives.

Picking a spot between a pair of rocks that would serve as a natural funnel for alien armor coming towards the station, Scott signaled for Catherine to start digging. The pair's E-tools bit into the hard-packed rocky soil, and Scott sighed as his shovel hit another rock. He cursed, digging around the massive rock and hauling it out.

"Freakin' rocks," Scott muttered.

Beside him, Catherine agreed. "This place has two rocks to one dirt."

Scott snorted in amusement and returned to digging. As he did so, however, he couldn't help sneaking the occasional glance towards Catherine, her brown hair descending from under her helmet, rising and falling as she worked. It was a little longer than regulation length, but Scott wasn't complaining.

"So," he said as he took a brief break, leaning against his E-tool and wiping away some sweat, trying to sound casual. "Where are you from?"

Catherine gave him a strange look and kept digging. "Why do you care?" she asked as she put her foot on top of her shovel, driving it deeper and unearthing a large section of soil.

_Uh-oh, uh-oh_, Scott thought. _Red alert, red alert. Dangerous waters ahead. _Thinking quickly, he was rather proud of the response he thought up. "Just curious," he asked, returning to the task at hand, dredging up more soil. "We're supposed to work as a team, and teams don't mesh if they don't know each other."

For a moment, Catherine was silent, and Scott began to get nervous, wondering if he had committed some error. Then, however, she flicked her head, her hair swaying again with the motion. "Earth," she replied nonchalantly.

Scott froze, poised midway through throwing a shovelful of dirt. "Really? _The _Earth?" he asked. While there was really on difference between humans, colonists tended to treat Earth-born people with a sort of reverential air, in the same way that citizens of the British Empire during its height in the eighteenth century would have treated someone who was actually born in the British Isles.

Catherine smiled, not breaking her digging. "Yup. The very same."

Scott blinked, then realized that he was standing there slack-jawed like an idiot. He hastily resumed digging. "Then how did you end up in the military?" The bulk of Earth's military was made up of colonists who had a stake in the defense of their homes, or were looking for revenge for the destruction of theirs. Earth had been so far mainly untouched by the war, and its residents had little reason to sign up, comfortable in their illusion of safety and the lies fed to them by ONI Section II that the war effort was going well.

Catherine set her E-tool aside. "My best friend in high school went into the Marines as a Second Lieutenant," she said. "She was deployed to-pass me that Lotus," she said, and Scott reached into the hovercart, passing her one of the flower-like anti-tank mines. "Thanks," she said, inserting the mine into the hole she had dug and covering it back up. Standing back and breathing slightly heavier, she continued. "She was deployed to Jericho VII, where her company was annihilated when the Covenant glassed it," she said bitterly. "I joined for revenge."

Scott swallowed, suddenly feeling like a jerk. "I-I'm sorry," he began, but Catherine cut him off.

"Don't be," she said with a vigorous shake of her head. "Billions have died in this war; I'd be a fool if I told myself that she was somehow special." She brooded on that for a moment, and then gave a weak smile. "My parents didn't like my decision. Thought I was being reckless and foolish." The smile became a grin at the memory. "I stormed out of the house in a rage. Haven't heard from 'em since."

"Ouch," Scott said with a smile. "That's got to be awkward."

"Yeah," Catherine said, "but I kind of got used to it after a while. I-"

She was cut off by Sergeant Mueller, who came over the CNM in that mildly annoyed tone he always had. "Anderson, Burke," he said. "Did you finish those Lotuses yet?"

Scott immediately jumped back to work, throwing a shovelful of dirt out of the hole and retrieving one of the Lotus mines. "Working on it, sir," he said, returning to the hole.

"Well, work faster," Mueller said brusquely. "I want that field mined yesterday."

"Yes, sir," Scott replied dutifully, grunting with exertion as he wrestled the mine into place and burying it up again.

They moved on to the next set of mines, their E-tools at work once again.

"What about you?" Catherine asked as she settled a pair of Antilon mines into place.

"What a_b_out me?" Scott said, his muscles burning as he rolled a massive rock out of the way.

Catherine seemed at a loss for words before replying. "Well, um, where do you come from? Why did you join up?"

Scott snorted with amusement. "The all-important, 'why am I dumb enough to be here question'?"

Catherine smiled. "I suppose you could call it that."

Scott blew out a breath, the not-quite-fully-healed scar on his heart burning anew as he remembered the news of Carpitua's fall.

"I joined the Army right out of high school," he said, leaning on his E-tool and staring over the horizon. "I figured I could stay in for a tour, maybe see a little action, get a nice fat pension, and then retire. Plus, my father had been a Marine that fought during the Insurrection, as had his grandfather, as had _his _father, so the military tradition was the major reason."

"I'll bet he was happy when he found out you were going out for the Army," Catherine said with a smile.

Scott couldn't help but grin at the memory as they returned to digging. "Oh, he pretended to be annoyed, but he was really proud of me. Besides, if I had followed most of my buddies from high school into the Marines, I'd probably be a bunch of carbonized ashes on Harvest or Biko or one of those other hell-holes that most of the Marines from my planet got shipped out to."

"And where would that be?" Catherine asked curiously.

Scott's smile vanished. "Carpitua."

Catherine dipped her head. "I-I'm sorry. Your parents, are they…?"

"Dead?" Scott asked. "As a doornail. Just like my brother."

"I-I'm sorry," Catherine said.

"Don't be," Scott said, mirroring her words from a few moments ago as he placed another Lotus mine. "I made peace with it a long time ago. I figure my time'll come eventually to, but I may as well kill as many alien sumbitches as I can."

They finished the rest of the mining in silence, just as Mueller's voice broke across the CNM again. "Anderson, Burke," he said. "Walker wants you back at the COM station. They're trying to wrestle a Mike-Two-Four-Seven up on the roof."

"Understood, sir," Scott said. "We're Oscar Mike."

**A/N: Gasp! A chapter with no shooting!  
>Sorry if I disappointed; I wanted to focus on character development in this chapter. Have faith; many explosions will be coming soon. And reviews, as always, are very much appreciated. <strong>


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